Waking the Dead
by WitchGirl
Summary: Brass knows something about Greg's sudden death that he isn't telling Nick and Sara. Determined to get justice for their friend, they find themselves crossing the FBI, falling into graves, and entangling themselves with a group of cannibalistic killers.
1. Irretrievably Lost

Waking The Dead

**Summary:** Nick and Sara become involved in proving that Greg's death-- declared accidental-- was in fact, murder. Until Brass steps in and tells them they have to stop, unless they want to get themselves killed. Sara/Nick friendship, Greg/Brass friendship. Smatterings of Grissom, Cath and Warrick.

**Author's Note:** I wanted to try something fresh, since everything else I have been writing felt so stale. No romance, not even undertones. All about the team, and a lot more Brass in this than normal (because I love him and I never use him, least of all in "Las Plagas" which turned out terribly, so here he is). Sara and Greg's roles were, in the beginning, switched, however, it made more sense for it to be this way. Began before viewing "For Gedda," which is irrelevant anyways, as it takes place before "Goodbye and Good Luck" (obviously). But I just wanted to let you know. I have considered writing a post-For Gedda fic. We will see. Updates will take place every htwo days. Maximum three.

* * *

_"The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and _irretrievably _lost."_ -- Arthur Schopenhauer

* * *

Sara Sidle had been a CSI for years, and had witnessed scenes far worse than the one that met her eyes, but none would compare to this. If she had chosen the highway for her route to Nick's scene, she would probably have avoided this encounter completely. But whimsy had chosen to lead her down this road, and her eyes caught sight of the flames, then the car, then the crime scene tape. She pulled over onto the shoulder and stepped out of the car, approaching the wreckage.

When she had first arrived, she had been unperturbed. She had only truly grasped the carnage of the image before her after speaking to Brass.

She saw the detective and waved him over. She tried to duck under the crime scene tape when a police officer she'd never seen before told her she couldn't cross.

"I'm CSI," Sara said, pointing to her vest. "I can show you my badge if this isn't enough."

"Captain Brass was clear that only authorized CSIs are allowed to pass," the officer told her in a monotone. He wore reflective sunglasses, which disturbed Sara, as she saw the flames from the wreck reflecting in his big, bug-like eyes.

It was then that Brass arrived, and she sighed with relief. "Tell him I can pass, Jim."

But Brass, his face stony, shook his head. "I'm afraid not this time, Sara."

She gaped. "What—?"

"What are you doing here anyway?" Brass snapped accusingly. "You weren't called to this scene."

He was unusually cool and she wasn't sure why. "I was on my way to meet Nick at the strip... there's a... a 419 and... and Brass, what's all this about?" She was baffled that she was being treated so coldly.

His eyes were haunted, but his face remained cold. "I can't tell you about it now, Sara."

"Why not?" she asked. "Who's on the case? Is Grissom here?"

"Grissom doesn't know about this yet," Brass told her.

"Who was in the wreck?" Sara asked. "Is it someone famous? A politician, an actor..." She saw a man wearing an FBI jacket pass behind Brass and her curiosity was piqued. "Brass? He is important, isn't he?"

Brass bowed his head. "He hasn't been identified yet."

His tone told Sara that he was lying. "But he was male."

Brass looked up and then sighed. "Go meet Nick at your scene, Sara, I'm sure he needs you."

"Brass, what the hell is going on here?!" she demanded. She tried to get a glimpse of the car, but it was engulfed in flames.

The FBI agent Sara had seen earlier approached Brass and nodded at Sara in greeting. "Is she with you, Jim?" he asked.

Sara was annoyed that he hadn't directed the question at her. "Yes, I am," she said sharply.

Brass muttered something to the agent under his breath, which Sara couldn't hear above the crackling fire. The agent's face changed, and then Sara heard him whisper, "Tell her," to Brass.

The detective sighed. He looked as if he was in great pain as he turned to Sara and ducked under the crime scene tape. He took her by the arm and led her away from the scene. She said nothing, knowing that he was going to answer all her questions now that he had the FBI's OK.

"Sara, do you remember a few months ago, when Greg and Nick's case became national?" he asked.

"Yeah..." Sara said slowly. "A death in California identical to the ones here, and then another in Oregon... What does this have to do with that?"

"The FBI enlisted Greg and Nick to help them out."

"I know that," Sara said. "But why are they _here_?"

Brass sighed. "A few weeks ago, Greg found the key piece of evidence to arrest a man from San Francisco for all five murders," Brass explained. "The... FBI offered him a job."

"A job?" Sara gasped. "He never mentioned it..."

"He wasn't supposed to," said Brass. "At least, not until he made his decision whether to take it or not." He chewed on his lip. "Last I heard, though nothing was ever official, he was thinking of taking it."

Sara's heart lurched at the thought of Greg moving away to work for the government. But she pushed that away and smiled, trying to be happy for him. "Well, good. That's a smart move, the FBI probably pays better..." There was a crumbling burst of flames from the burning car, and Sara remembered where they were. Suddenly, despite the heat radiating from the orange and yellow wreckage, she was very cold. "You still haven't told me why this is relevant."

"The FBI is here to..." Brass swallowed. "To investigate the mysterious death of one of their own."

He had worded it carefully enough that it almost seemed tragic, but detached, irrelevant to Sara's life, because she knew no one who worked for the FBI. Or at least, not until recently.

And now, in the face of the fire, she was shivering. "You're... you're _not_ saying..."

He tried to touch her arm, but she pulled it out of his reach. "I'm sorry..." he whispered.

"No!" she said, quietly but forcefully. "That's not Greg's car."

"So far, it looks like it was an accident," Brass said. "It doesn't look like there was any foul play or anything. It looks like he just... he just veered off the road, and a spark from his—"

"Greg wouldn't..." She rubbed her arms to warm herself and then looked up at the sky, blinking fervently before looking back at Brass. "It couldn't have been an... an accident. There has to be someone, someone must have... Oh God..." She stifled a sob. Loosing Greg to the FBI had been bad enough, but losing him to a burning car felt infinitely worse. She swallowed. "There has to be someone to blame."

"Would that help?" Brass asked her. "I mean, seriously... would you feel any better if this _was_ murder?"

"Yes!" Sara exclaimed ferociously through gritted teeth. "Yes, I would. Because it means that there is someone I can hit. It means there is someone I can pummel into a bloody pulp and light on fire, and it means that it wasn't..." She lost her train of thought, as well as her ferocity and she fell back into herself. She blinked a few more times, and then looked at Brass, her voice suddenly very small, like a child's. "An... an accident?" she asked.

Brass pursed his lips and nodded.

Sara shuddered and then ran a hand through her hair, looking around. "Um... I... Nick is waiting..." She backed away from Brass. "I should go meet him. Don't want to make him..." She paused, and then shook her head and took a few more steps to Brass. "No. _No_. I want to see him. I want to see the scene. Let me work it. _Please_, Jim."

He seized her by the shoulders, trying to calm her down with his grip. "The FBI already put in a request to process it personally. They have their own guys to work this scene. I'm only here as a liaison."

"Let me stay..." she begged. "At least let me stay and watch."

"Sara..." he said, his voice exhausted. "There's nothing left to see."

"His body," Sara insisted. "I want to see his body."

"No," Brass told her, shaking his head. "You really don't."

She didn't know what to do. She didn't know where to go. So she asked his opinion. "What... what do you want me to do?"

He smiled at her and pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Go to your scene and talk to Nick. Or go back to the lab and talk to Grissom. Or go home and... and just do whatever you need to make you feel better."

She nodded. "Nick and the scene..." She forced a smile. "I'm on the clock. Can't let the victim down."

"Exactly," Brass said. "You do that. I'll call Grissom, and he can tell the others."

"I can't keep something like this from Nick," Sara told Brass.

"Of course you can't," Brass replied. "Now go."

She nodded and looked back at her car. She gave him one last smile before turning her back on him and the fire and walking to her car.

* * *

Nick was crouched over the victim in the middle of the road when he heard Sara's car finally pull up. He rolled his eyes as he got to his feet, ready to give her an earful. She stepped out of the car and closed the door, and he walked towards her with his arms out wide.

"Where the hell have you been?" he asked, half-frustrated, half-amused. "You said five minutes and I've been waiting more than half an hour!"

Her face was pale and she mumbled an apology.

He frowned, sensing something amiss. "What's the matter?"

She answered his question with her own. "What have we got here?"

Nick looked over his shoulder at the body. "Looks like a hit and run," he said, turning back to her. "He's got broken shins, looks like he was hit head on."

Sara walked past him and crouched over the body. Nick watched her curiously as she snapped on her gloves.

"COD?"

"Blunt force trauma to the head," Nick said. "Or, at least, that's what David determined."

The victim's glassy eyes stared up at the starry sky. Sara stared into them, as if searching for his story there. But dead eyes tell no tales. So like leather-bound twin tomes, she closed them with her fingers. She collected a piece of glass from his hair and bagged it. She took out a comb and carefully went through the rest of his hair, as if she was grooming him rather than searching for evidence. When she was done, she stroked his hair reverently, still staring at his face.

Nick was ill at ease. "I, uh... I did the wounds on his legs, collected what looks to be a shard of reflective glass, probably from a headlight or..."

Sara slowly rose to her feet and he trailed off. She handed him the evidence she had collected from his hair. "You've done the street around him it looks like," she whispered. "Didn't leave much for me to do, did you?" She tried to smile, but it looked uncomfortable.

He laughed, awkwardly. "Yeah... well, you were thirty minutes late... What happened to you?"

"Are you done here?" she asked.

"Yeah, probably," he replied. "Sara, what's wrong?"

"Take the evidence back to your car," she said quietly. "I'll drive back in mine."

Nick nodded. She was unusually placid, her voice soft and her manner peaceful. He had the eerie feeling that he was in the presence of a ghost. But he did what she said, and he watched her walk back to her own car. He placed the evidence in his kit in the back of his car and then closed the trunk. He looked over at her as she opened the door to her car, and then she hesitated, her back to Nick.

"Greg's dead," she said simply.

She might as well have shot him in the back. Nick stared at her incredulously as she climbed into her car and backed away before K-turning onto the road.

* * *

Nick felt the sweat collect under his palms as he gripped the wheel and stared at Sara's tail lights in front of him. His heart was pounding in his chest as her words reverberated in his skull. _Greg's dead_. Surely, she hadn't been literal. She must have added something else that he had missed. Maybe Greg's love life was dead. Or Greg's goldfish was dead. Or maybe he had misheard her entirely. Maybe she said Greg's red. Although what that meant, he wasn't sure.

He concluded that he needed to call her, and so, with one hand still gripping the wheel as if his life depended on it, he reached into his pocket for his cell phone and hit her speed dial button.

The phone rang a few times, and he saw her shadow move in the front seat of her car. He dared her to pick up.

Finally, she did. "Sidle." He voice was flat and official.

"What the fuck was that?" Nick snarled. "That was just cruel. Are you serious?"

"Greg is dead, Nick," she simply repeated. "He died in a... well, he just died."

"How come you know this?" Nick asked. "When did this happen? Who told you?"

"I stumbled on the scene on my way to meet you," Sara explained. "Brass was there. He told me."

Nick blanched. "How fucking dare you."

"It's not my fault," she told him. "It was... Brass said it was just an accident. Said he veered off the road, rolled into the ditch, something sparked a fire and then—"

"You don't tell someone like that," Nick interrupted angrily. "You don't just show up and act all strange and then as an afterthought just mention, 'Oh, yeah, by the way, your best friend is dead.'"

Sara was silent.

"What, no stoic defense?" he egged. "No 'That's just how I am,' or 'I didn't know how to tell you'?"

"I didn't know he was your best friend," Sara said in a whisper.

Nick looked into her car and tried to catch a glimpse of her, but failed. He, too, was suddenly dumbstruck. "I... I wasn't so sure either," he confessed. "I mean..." He closed his eyes, his stomach twisting inside of him, bile rising in his throat, and he closed his eyes for just a moment, gripping the wheel and his phone until his knuckles turned white and a bead of seat rolled down the side of his face. He tensed, momentarily forgetting that he was in a car at all, and his hand turned the wheel sharply, and there was a few rocky bumps that made him open his eyes as he slid off of the highway and into the guardrail.

"Nick!" he heard Sara exclaim just as the airbags exploded and his phone fell to the floor. He smacked his head against the door frame of his car and closed his eyes tightly to fight the pain. Bells were screaming in his ears and fireworks exploded behind his eyelids.

The next thing he knew, his door was thrown open.

"Oh my God..." he heard Sara breathe.

"I'm fine," he insisted, reaching to unbuckle his seatbelt. "Just... my head hurts."

"I oughta slap you!" Sara screeched, unusually shrill.

"Please don't," Nick begged, holding a hand to his head as he fought back the airbag. Sara reached in and stabbed it with a pocket knife, and the noise as it deflated hissed in his ears.

"I've already lost one friend to a car accident today, you won't be next," Sara said. And then, a thought occurred to her. "His phone..."

"Who's phone?" Nick asked, leaning back in his seat.

"Greg's phone," Sara clarified. "They should check it. See if anyone called him. I mean, _something_ had to make him swerve off the road. Like you so eloquently just demonstrated."

She helped him out of the car and slammed the door. Nick leaned forward to look at the hood. He winced. "Aw, damn, they're gonna make me pay for that, aren't they?"

"I think we have bigger worries..." Sara breathed.

Nick covered his face with his hands and rubbed his eyes. "Oh my God..." he groaned, his voice muffled by his hands. "Oh my God, Greg..."

He fell to his knees, and Sara's grip on his shoulders slid away. The gravel cut into his knees, but he could have cared less. He heard Sara kneel down beside him as his hands slid up his face and ran through his hair. He had a furious wolverine inside his chest that was gnawing at his ribcage and clawing beneath his skin, desperate to get out. Greg was dead. Greg was really, _really_ dead. His brown eyes stared unseeing at the ground as his still dizzily pounding head tried desperately to make sense of those words. Greg was dead. His stomach churned as the wolverine howled, and he knew he needed to expel the beast from inside of him.

In seconds, he was on all fours, and all of the acid and broken hopes poured from him as he gagged and wretched, making sure it was all out of him, making sure that he could feel safe again. He coughed and spluttered, and after a few more dry heaves, he became aware of something warm resting on his back. He closed his eyes, and looked to the side, where he saw Sara beside him, watching him with a straight face. He let out a curt, morose laugh, and then turned away from her again. Sara's hand moved up his spine and back and forth across his shoulders. He closed his eyes as he tried to concentrate on her touch, trying to imagine that she was warming him like the sun, melting the ice in his lungs that made it hard to breathe.

He slowly sat back on his knees again and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. His breath reeked, and he wished he had gum. He looked at Sara again, who was still with him, her hand still across his shoulders. And then he turned to her, his arms rising to envelope her as he rested his head on her shoulder. He did not cry, though his breathing seemed labored. He closed his eyes and stroked her hair, pretending that he was comforting her and not the other way around.

Her arms, which had risen to embrace him in turn, suddenly tightened without warning, and he felt her chest contract in short, staccato bursts. And he realized that he didn't have to pretend anymore.

* * *

Sara drove Nick back to the lab, after a quick visit to the hospital to make sure he was OK after his crash. He had a concussion, but the doctors had assured them that he would be fine within a few hours. In the meantime, he was very out of it, and he and Sara spoke very little.

They walked into the lab side by side, dragging their feet. They saw no one from their shift that they recognized. Sara vaguely wondered where they were. Almost unconsciously, their feet carried them to Grissom's office. The door was ajar and Sara pushed it open to see Grissom leaning over his desk with his fingers on his temples. He looked up upon hearing their entrance.

"Sara..." he began, then he saw Nick and rose to his feet immediately. "What happened?"

Nick blinked and looked at Sara, who answered for him.

"He just has a small concussion, that's all," Sara assured Grissom. "The bump looks worse than it is."

"I have a bump?" Nick groaned, and then his hand rose to feel it. He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

"How did it happen?" Grissom asked.

"Nick was upset," Sara explained. "He sort of... kind of... crashed into the guardrail of I-15."

Grissom slowly sat down again. "You finished with the 419?"

Sara nodded and Nick held up his kit.

"Good," Grissom said, absently. "You two can go home early today. Catherine and Warrick already took off."

Sara and Nick again both nodded. They didn't need to ask why. Just because no one had said his name didn't mean that any of them had forgotten.

"And what about you?" Sara inquired, curiously, tenderly. He didn't respond and she took a step towards his desk when he pushed his chair back.

"I have to finish up a few things..." he told her quietly, but he refused to look at her.

Sara understood that he wanted to be left alone so she withdrew and looked up at Nick. "Come on," she said to him. "I'll drive you home."

As they left, she glanced back at Grissom, whose hand was covering his eyes. She swallowed to get rid of the lump in her throat, and then exited with Nick.

* * *

Sara took it as a personal affront that there wasn't a cloud in the sky. She stared upwards and into the blue, beyond which she knew lay light-years of empty space. Science told her that it was an infinite expanse, but logic found this hard to believe. Similarly, religion, if she believed in religion, would tell her that beyond space, there was a place where the dead go to be at peace, but again, her logic found this even harder to believe. When you die, you're dead. There is nothing left. It's a harsh, frightening truth, especially since humans have this desire to live forever, to have had an impact on the world, to be remembered. But the facts of the matter always stared Sara right in the face, and she had always been clear on them. To her, it made the crime of murder even more heinous. A person has essentially erased another person from all existence, and to her that was unforgivable. But in fifty years, the ones that person had known would also cease to exist, and their effects on the world, their memories, their first kisses, their last dances, all of that would be lost on the rest of the planet. No one would ever know or care if they had been a saint or a sinner. There were the rare few that managed to leave their mark on history, to be remembered in some way, shape, or form, but even so, what made them the person that they were would never be really remembered.

And besides all that, Greg was unimportant to history. Most of the bodies she processed were unimportant to history. They lived in the punctuation of their death certificates. They lived in the numbers of statistics. Tragic, but altogether forgettable to anyone who did not know them personally. And try as folks might to erect memorials in order to preserve their names in history, without a face, it's just a name.

And after this funeral, she would have to erase Greg from her life. When that casket was committed to the earth and buried, she would have to bury him too.

Greg's family was protestant, and as they had orchestrated the funeral, the service had taken place in a church. But Sara knew that Greg wasn't really religious himself, so to her this whole affair held absolutely no meaning. _Heaven is more of a comfort to the living than the dead. _She had forgotten where she had heard that.

They had now moved to the cemetery where they sat in rows of folding chairs around Greg's grave. Beside her, Grissom grasped her hand and squeezed it tightly. On her other side, Catherine's hands were clasped between her knees and her head was bent. Sara wondered if she was praying. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she didn't know the religious beliefs of her friends outside of Grissom. Catherine could very well be very religious, even though the woman never struck Sara as that type of person. But nevertheless, her shoulders were hunched forward and her back was slumped, almost as if she was trying to hide what she was doing, as if it was embarrassing to her, or... Or as if she was trying to shelter herself from the destruction of the explosion of Greg's death.

They would try to minimize the fallout. They wouldn't talk about him. Grissom would hire a new CSI. Wendy was interested, Sara knew that. But if she made the leap from DNA tech to CSI, she would no longer be accused of "pulling a Greg," because that word, that name, would be taboo in the lab. He would be pushed to the back of everyone's mind, a footnote in the story of their lives, and eventually, when they were gone, he wouldn't be remembered at all.

Warrick sat beside Catherine, his eyes trained on the priest who spoke about Greg, though Sara was nearly positive that the man had never met Greg Sanders in his life. Regardless, Warrick seemed to be hanging on every word, as if the priest could tell him something that he didn't know. As if the priest had the power to bring Greg back to life. But no one had the power to do that.

Nick wasn't there.

Neither was Brass.

She didn't know why.


	2. Last Words

**_Author's Note:_** As I told Kegel... I am _very_ excited about this one.

* * *

_"You hold his hand, you smooth his tie, you gently lift his chin. Were you really so blind, and unkind to him? Can't help the itch, to touch, to kiss, to hold him once again. Now to close his eyes, never open them. All things he ever did are left behind. All the things his Mama wished he'd bear in mind, and all his Dad had hoped he'd know."--_ "Left Behind," Spring Awakening

* * *

**Chapter Two**

_Several weeks later..._

Sara jogged down the hall and caught up with Nick. "What're your results from Archie?" she asked as she walked alongside him.

Nick was looking through an envelope. "He narrowed the plate number down, but we still have about sixty cars in the area with the numbers 42 successively."

"That's a lot, isn't it?" Sara asked.

Nick shrugged. "42 is the meaning of life."

She smirked and handed him her file. "It was coke."

"The soda?"a

"The drug."

"Where?"

"In his hair," she explained. "Along with the glass. At first, I thought it was just dandruff."

"Aw, his girlfriend won't like that," Nick said skeptically. "She thought he was off that stuff."

"Maybe he was," Sara postulated. "Maybe his dealer took it as a personal injury and intentionally hit him with his car."

"Mr. Stokes?"

Both he and Sara turned to see an FBI agent approaching them. He was brawny, with brown hair that was neatly trimmed. Nick recognized him while Sara did not.

Nick was cool when he spoke, and Sara wondered if he liked the man very much. "Agent Cutler. I was under the impression that our case was closed until the trial."

Agent Cutler seemed hesitant. "There's been another murder. Same MO, same everything. Kincaid's lawyer is insisting his case be reexamined."

Nick was pale. "With all due respect, Agent Cutler, I really don't want to delve into that territory again. Besides, I thought you Feds took over that whole thing."

"Well, this new murder hasn't been proven to be the work of our serial killer, only suspected," he said slowly, giving Nick and Sara both the impression that the FBI was exploiting a loophole. "So technically, it's still in your jurisdiction."

"Why do you need me?" Nick asked. "You FBI guys have your own people."

Cutler hesitated, then looked at Sara and nodded at her politely. "Excuse me, ma'am, but I'm going to need to borrow him over here for a second."

"Please do," Sara said, and Cutler led Nick back down the hall.

"Captain Brass said that you and Greg were on the same wavelength when it came to this guy," Cutler told Nick quietly. "It was pretty much only coincidence that Greg stumbled upon that print before you did."

"It's not coincidence, Greg was good," Nick insisted. "We had about four different partials, but none of them fit together right, until Greg realized that one was for the other hand. He fit three of them together and it matched Kincaid. Greg was always good with puzzles..." He trailed off, then blinked. "What do you want me to do?"

"We have a feeling that..." He pursed his lips. "We don't have a feeling. We know."

"What do you know?" Nick asked.

"Kincaid did not commit all of the murders he has been charged with," Cutler explained.

Nick frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Kincaid was part of an organization," Kincaid explained. "Radical vigilantes who believe that the entire governmental system is corrupt and have taken it upon themselves to clean it up."

"Politicians..." Nick muttered. "Lobbyists, lawyers, judges... It's a corruption thing," Nick muttered. "We just thought Kincaid had a grudge because his son was executed."

"That very well may have been what inspired him to organize this group," Cutler said. "But he's not the only one."

"Did Greg know about this?" Nick asked.

Cutler was prudent. "Yes... to an extent."

"Is that what he was working on before he died?" Nick pressed.

Cutler nodded. "Kincaid threatened him, saying he was part of the system and therefore part of the problem," Cutler explained. "We put him under a watch, but Kincaid never followed through on that threat—"

"What do you _mean_ he never followed through?!" Nick suddenly exploded. "You don't think it's odd that Kincaid threatens him and he suddenly has a mysterious accident?!"

"We ruled it an _accident_," Cutler emphasized in a low hiss. "Because it _was_ an accident!"

Nick shook his head. "I knew you feds shouldn't have investigated. Your lab guys have no idea what to look for. I knew there was something up with that crash. Sara was right, you don't just swerve off the road for no reason. Was the steering tampered with? How about his breaks, were they cut? Maybe he swerved to avoid someone in the road—"

"And without empirical evidence, these are just a bunch of _maybes_," Cutler interrupted harshly. "Trust me. We were thorough. And we would be the first ones to act if we thought there was foul play from the Chi Tsaran. But there _wasn't_."

"The _what_?" Nick asked.

Cutler sighed. "It's what they call themselves."

"Ky-Saran? What does it mean?" Nick asked.

"It's an anagram," Cutler spat. "Figure it out."

This sudden change in demeanor was disturbing to Nick. "There's something you're not telling me, isn't there?"

Again, Cutler sighed, this time, sounding regretful. "No. You know all that we do."

"You still haven't told me what you needed me to do."

Cutler nodded. "I want your eyes on this new scene. You're familiar with the case, but you haven't seen a scene for a while. You're the perfect combination of a fresh and conscientious mind." He paused, holding his breath. "And... besides, I'm pretty sure Greg would have wanted you to continue on this case in his stead."

Nick closed his eyes and looked sharply away from Cutler. "You had to bring Greg into this..."

"I did," Cutler agreed. "That shows you how desperate we are to have you."

"Where's the scene?" Nick asked.

"At Senator Kenna's house," Cutler told him.

"Aw, Christ, they hit a senator?" Nick sighed.

Cutler nodded. "Brass is talking to Kincaid right now to see if he knows anything."

Nick was curious. "Let me talk to him."

They came to the interrogation room and Cutler opened the door for him. "Be my guest," he said.

He first saw Kincaid behind the glass. Brass was seated, leaning back in his chair. To the unknowing observer, he would seem calm. But Nick knew better.

He opened the door to the room and Brass looked up. The detective seemed startled at his appearance and was immediately on his feet as he strode towards Nick. He squeezed the CSI's shoulder hard before whispering sharply, "_What are you doing here_?"

"Cutler wanted me on the case," Nick whispered back.

And then, for the briefest moment, Brass looked furious. The hand that gripped his shoulder suddenly released and he spun around towards Kincaid again, apparently letting go of his anger. Or redirecting it at Kincaid. He slammed his hands on the table, but spoke in controlled tones.

"You think you're smarter than us. You think you're above the law. That you and your disciples can do whatever the hell you want and just get away with it."

Kincaid wasn't interested in Brass anymore. He turned his attention toward Nick, with mild intrigue. He looked exactly as Nick remembered him. He was in his late fifties, his white hair slicked back, and even in an orange jumpsuit he looked suave. He might as well have been wearing a pinstriped suit and tie.

"Mr. Stokes, how are you?" he said loudly, his voice smooth. "I haven't seen you for a while. I was worried you'd forgotten about me."

"Now how can I forget such a charming and accommodating prisoner such as yourself, Andrew?" Nick said loudly, almost amiably.

"Haven't seen your friend in a while either," Kincaid noted. "How's he doing?"

Nick felt as if Kincaid was taunting him. "Let's talk about Wilbur Kenna," Nick said, taking a seat next to Brass.

Kincaid sensed Nick's unease and capitalized on it. "You know, I liked him," he said.

"Kenna?" Brass inquired.

Kincaid smirked. "Greg Sanders. He really thought he was doing good. That was what was so interesting about him. You share that quality, Mr. Stokes. You both think that you're actually making a difference in this world. How beautifully altruistic, but how tragically naive."

Nick's teeth clenched and Brass could hear them grinding.

"Nick, I think you should leave," Brass advised.

"What did you do to him?" Nick whispered coldly.

"Kenna?" Kincaid asked, innocently.

"Greg," Nick growled.

Kincaid laughed. "Did something happen to him? I had no idea."

Nick was about to speak but Brass cut him off. "Greg Sanders was in a car accident about six weeks ago," he explained simply.

Kincaid leaned back in his chair and clicked his tongue. "That's a shame. Like I said, I liked him."

"You _threatened_ him!" Nick roared.

"Only because he was working for the wrong side!" Kincaid returned. "He was helping _them_. His sense of justice was warped. Just because I liked him doesn't mean I agreed with what he was doing. He needed to be stopped. And so do you."

Nick's brow furrowed. "You messed with his car, didn't you?" he whispered.

Kincaid laughed again. "How could I, Mr. Stokes? I've been in here for the past three months."

"Your little gang did it," Nick accused. "You had someone from the Chi Tsaran rig his car to crash."

"Mr. Stokes, you know my file," Kincaid said, shaking his head. "I don't deal in car accidents."

"No," Brass broke in sharply, casting Nick a reproachful look. "You just flay people and eat their skin."

"Only the tasty ones," Kincaid said with a smirk.

"That's what makes you particularly psychotic," Brass said. "It's one thing to kill folks in the name of an ideal, it's another thing to torture them and eat their skin."

"What can I say?" said Kincaid with a shrug. "It's symbolic."

"Symbolic." Brass repeated flatly. "How exactly? Politicians are cannibals?"

"Consider the verb 'to flay,' Captain Brass," Kincaid said. "'To strip off the skin.' Or, 'to criticize with scathing severity.' Or, my personal favorite, 'to deprive or strip of money or property.' We strip them of everything they have stolen from the people. As for the cannibal analogy, it still holds true. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, Captain. If we don't eat them first, they'll sure as hell eat us."

Nick kicked his chair back and was on his feet, but he said nothing. Both Kincaid and Brass were watching him as he took deep breaths and stared at Kincaid.

"Is there a problem, Mr. Stokes?" Kincaid asked coolly.

"He did it," Nick said suddenly. "I don't know how, but he did it."

"Nick, could I talk to you outside for a moment?" said Brass. Without waiting for an answer, he took Nick by the arm and led him from the room.

They found Cutler there.

"What the hell do you think you're doing in there?" Brass snarled. "This is about Kenna, not Greg!"

"I brought him here," Cutler said. "Don wants him in on this."

Brass turned on Cutler. "What exactly did you tell him? Did you tell him Kincaid threatened Sanders?"

Cutler nodded. "Don wanted full disclosure."

Brass's eyes widened. "Full disclosure?"

Cutler blinked, his face inscrutable. "Yes. Just like with Gil Grissom."

"Full disclosure..." Brass repeated.

"Grissom knows about this?" Nick cried.

"Well... yes," Brass said, turning to Nick again. "When Greg was... making his transfer to FBI, he and Grissom shared a number of conversations on the subject, as well as on Kincaid and the Chi Tsaran." He turned back to Cutler. "Why did Don Spiegelman want Nick back on this case?"

"Don was..." He glanced at Nick, then back to Brass, "close to Greg. Greg talked about Nick a lot. He said... and I quote... 'the guy has skills.' He attributed half of his progress in this case to him. With Greg gone, Don wanted Nick."

"I'm not taking an FBI job," Nick said quickly. "It may have suited Greg fine enough, but I like it here."

Cutler smiled. "We won't make you do anything you don't want to, Nick."

Brass was rubbing his eyes, seemingly tired. "I'm gonna need to talk to Spiegelman."

"Hey, that's not my problem," Cutler said, holding his hands up.

"If you're lucky, it won't be," Brass said. He turned back to Nick. "Stop all this nonsense about Kincaid being responsible for Greg's death. He's not."

"I already told him that, Jim," Cutler said.

"Thank you, Max," Brass replied.

"Brass, you don't think it's a _tad _too coincidental that Kincaid threatened Greg and he suddenly ends up dead?" Nick pointed out.

Brass bit his tongue and cursed. "Nick—" He searched for words. He couldn't find any and he shook his head. "No. I can't even talk to you." He moved past both Nick and Cutler before leaving the room and slamming the door behind him.

"Why's he so upset about this?" Nick asked Cutler, who shrugged.

"I think it's just him dealing with what happened to Greg," Cutler reasoned. "You know, we all have our ways."

"How come you folks are so sure it was an accident?" Nick demanded.

"I was on that case myself, Nick," Cutler told him. "Believe me, we went over every inch of that scene."

"Let me see the evidence," Nick insisted. "I just… if you just let me look over the evidence, I'll feel a whole lot better."

"There is no evidence," Cutler said slowly.

Nick blinked. He must have misheard. "There has to be evidence. What are you talking about?"

"The car was towed to an impound lot," Cutler explained. "The rest of the evidence was destroyed. The case is closed, Nick. You know what happens then."

Nick felt irritation bubbling in his stomach. "Well then, let me see the files. We keep those, I know we do."

"That's FBI property," Cutler said, shaking his head.

"What, is it classified?" Nick asked with a laugh. Cutler didn't reply and his smile faded. "It is?! Why?!"

"Don't shoot the messenger, Nick!" Cutler exclaimed. "Look, I can't… I don't know what to say, Nick."

Nick spoke through gritted teeth. "Greg died in the Las Vegas area. Last time I checked that was _our_ jurisdiction. If there was no foul play involved, there is no reason for it to be classified."

"Everything at the FBI is classified, Nick," Cutler said, exasperated.

"I can't talk to you," Nick said, shaking his head. He felt the tears stinging his eyes and he closed them tightly as he made a quick exit.

He hadn't thought about Greg since the funeral. Though Sara hadn't seen him, he had been there. He had lurked first in the doorway of the church, and second by a tree in the graveyard. He had been afraid of getting too close to Greg's closed casket. As if maybe it would suddenly open somehow, and he would have to see his body, charred black from the flames, and it would have haunted him for the rest of his life.

And now, his throat was constricting, and his eyes were stinging and he opened a door to the nearest room and slammed it shut where he could find some solitude as he grieved. He leaned against the door and let out a sob as he stared up at the ceiling and allowed his feelings to flow from his eyes. Something wasn't right. _Nothing_ was right, not without Greg. But Brass was acting strangely, and so was the FBI. And so was Kincaid.

He had to charge him. He didn't care what Brass and Cutler said. Kincaid killed Greg. What's worse, Brass probably knew it. But for some sick reason, the FBI was keeping it from the rest of the world. And Nick didn't care if they were playing some sort of game to get Kincaid to confess, and tell them about other members of the Chi Tsaran. All he cared about was Greg.

There was a knock on the door and Nick suddenly held his breath. And then, there was a voice.

"Nick? It's Sara. I saw you run in here."

His heart was beating rapidly and he sniffed and wiped his tears on his sleeves. "Uh… yeah," he called back. "What do you need?"

"I want to know what's wrong," she told him. "Would you talk to me?"

He sighed, and then he had an idea. "Yeah, actually. Yeah, I want to talk to you about something." He turned around and opened the door to see her. Her face fell when she saw him.

"You look like shit."

"Same to you, get in here," he said quickly, and pulled her in the room.

"What's your rush?" she asked, laughing lightly.

"I think Greg was murdered," he told her frankly.

Her smile vanished. "No, Brass said he wasn't. I believe that."

"Yeah, well I asked Cutler if I could see the files? He said it was classified."

"So?" Sara said sharply, almost defensively. "Everything in the FBI is classified. It's the FBI!"

"If Greg's death was really an accident, and if his case was really closed, why would they hide the evidence files?" Nick pressed. "Besides, Greg's case has been officially closed for, what, a week? Cutler said they already destroyed all the evidence. Talk about a hasty cleanup."

Sara shook her head, looking baffled, but then her eyes narrowed and she gripped his arm. "No," she said sternly. "Greg is dead. Don't go digging up graves."

"I didn't say anything about digging up graves," Nick said. "But now that you mention it, Greg's body—"

"Oh my God!" Sara was incredulous as she stared at him wide-eyed. "You can't be serious! I won't let you!"

"Sara, if Greg _was_ murdered, don't you want him to get justice?" Nick asked. "Don't you want the guy that killed him to pay for what he did?!"

Sara's lip trembled and she turned her back on him. "I buried him, Nick. Deep, deep down, and I want him to stay buried. The last thing I need is a zombie Greg haunting my conscious life like he haunts my dreams."

Nick approached her back and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. She tensed, but did not pull away. "You're having nightmares because you know something isn't right with his case."

She whirled around on the ball of her foot and she and Nick were inches apart. "I'm having _nightmares_ because he's _dead_. And the last thing he said to me was…" She trailed off, her brow furrowed. "Wait…"

"What is it?" Nick asked.

"The last thing he said to me…" Sara whispered.

"What did he say?" Nick pressed.

* * *

It was the night before his death. Sara hadn't seen him in days because he had been busy working with the FBI on the Kincaid case. And then, all of a sudden, he had come running into the lab, just like he used to years ago when he had results on a big case.

"Hey, Sara," he said with a grin. "Let's go out."

She blinked and shrugged. "I can't, Greggo. I gotta finish this up. I'm almost done with this case, I'm just waiting on a few things to fall into place…" She focused the microscope as she squinted at the trace evidence beneath it. Weeks later, she would have forgotten what was under that microscope that was so much more important than spending time with Greg.

"You can do that tomorrow," Greg said, his smile now sounding more forced as he tried to persuade her. "C'mon. It's been ages since we've gotten dinner together or anything. And all I'm asking is coffee. Or drinks! You like drinks!"

"I _love_ drinks…" Sara said, pulling away from the microscope and staring at the equipment pensively. She shook her head. "But I gotta stay. My shift isn't even over yet, Greg."

"So play hooky," Greg urged, sounding excited again. "Do it for me?"

She looked up and he was grinning at her and he batted his eyes at her like a puppy, or a little girl. It made her laugh.

"You're adorable, but I can't," she said.

"I'll dedicate my book to you," he sang, trying to bribe her.

She laughed. "I'm sorry! Why don't you go ask Nick or Catherine or something."

Greg's smile slowly lost its vigor. "Nick's on a case," he said. "He wouldn't come either."

"Ah," Sara said, finally realizing it. "So I'm second choice?"

"No, you're first choice," Greg told her. "My first plan was to take all of you out. But Nick is busy chatting with Hodges about DNA, Grissom says he's swamped with paperwork, Catherine said it's Lindsey's dance recital tonight, and Warrick said something about a divorce thing with his wife and lawyer." He seemed a little more downcast about these facts than he probably should have. "I was hoping to have a nice night out together. With all of us. You know? And when all of them said no, I was kind of relying on you to… Well, I never spend any time alone with you anymore, so I thought that would have been really… really cool."

Sara shrugged. "How about tomorrow? I'll be done with this case by then."

He bit his lip and nodded. "Yeah," he said, his smile definitely a cover now. "Yeah, tomorrow sounds good."

"Yeah," Sara said. "Just you and me. Drinks. I'm buying."

He nodded and turned to leave when he paused and spun around again. "No," he insisted. "Let's go now."

She was surprised and mildly amused by his persistence. "Greg—"

"Come on!" he insisted, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her slightly towards the door. However, she was startled by the motion and lost her balance, knocking the trace evidence to the floor.

"Dammit, Greg!" she screamed as she fell to her knees to collect the powdery substance that was now all over the floor.

He remained standing as he looked down at her. "I… I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"Just _go away_!" she snapped from the floor. "I'm definitely not going out now! I have to take care of this!"

Greg backed away towards the door. "Right." He hesitated in the doorframe. "Um… Hey, Sara?" he said.

"What?!" She growled irritably as she looked up at him.

"This isn't the best time to tell you this, but… You're one of my best friends. Ever."

She rolled her eyes. "That's great, Greg," she muttered.

"OK…" Greg said, nodding as he turned to leave again. He stopped once more and turned to face her again. "OK, um… You don't want to say anything less sarcastic than that?" he asked.

She sat back on her knees and sighed as she shot daggers at him. "To be honest, I'm not too fond of you right now. You just doubled, if not tripled my work load on this case."

"But in general…" Greg said slowly. "You like me too."

She bit her lip. "As a friend, yeah, I like you. But not right now."

And then, and she didn't know why, he smiled. "Thanks," he said. "I know you mean it."

"Well that's nice," Sara said snidely. "Now get the hell out of here!"

And grinning… he finally did.


	3. To the Grave

_**Author's Note:**_ It's always confusing when someone adds a story of mine to their favorites/alerts list but don't drop me a review! I realize I have nothing to threaten you with, except updates, which I think is lame, but seriously, dudes, it's common courtesy, and it's not like I don't know who you are.٭Narrows eyes٭. Alright, as for those who reviewed the first two chapters, you rock. LaughableBlackStorm, WuHaoNi, Mma63, necira, and racefh853629. Thanks for being awesome and loyal fic readers. As for my progress, I've run into a stone wall in chapter six. Kegel is helping me through it, as well as beta-ing for me, so we'll see how it turns out...

* * *

_"The graveyards are full of indispensable men."_ --Charles de Gaulle

* * *

Nick was quiet as he listened to Sara recount the tale. "Your last words to him were 'Get the hell out of here'?"

She was staring at the floor, her arms folded across her chest as she nodded. "But that's not what's bothering me most about that conversation."

"It'd bug me too," Nick said, understandingly. "He tells you you're his best friend and all you can say in return is that in general, you like him… Actually, I—"

"No," Sara said, shaking her head. "It's… It's how he said it. _He_ wanted to go out, _he_ told me that I was his best friend but strangest of all… He tried to get me to say something I wouldn't regret."

Nick blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Come on! 'Don't you want to say anything less sarcastic than that?' What the hell does that mean?" Sara exclaimed.

Nick looked away, his face pensive. "He knew something was going to happen."

Sara nodded. "What did he say to you, the last time you saw him?"

Nick shook his head. "Last time I saw him, we were on the Kincaid case together, but… The last time we spoke was on the phone that night. When he invited me to dinner."

* * *

Nick's last memory was much briefer than Sara's. He had been with Detective Vega and a suspect when his phone buzzed at his hip.

"Answer it later," Vega hissed.

And Nick agreed and silenced his phone. Vega continued to question the suspect, who would become faceless and nameless to Nick a few weeks later.

His phone buzzed again. "It must be important," he said to Vega, and excused himself into the other room before answering it.

"Stokes."

"Nick! What are you doing right now?"

Nick blinked. "Greg? I'm with a suspect, on a case. Can this wait?"

"No. We're all going out to eat and you're coming."

"Can't, man, busy," Nick said, shaking his head even though he knew Greg couldn't see.

"You'll regret it!" Greg taunted in a sing-song voice. At the time, Nick thought he had just been trying to get him to go.

"Who's all going?" Nick queried.

"So far?" Greg replied, sounding nervous. "Um… just me. But I hope to enlist Cath, Griss and the others in this endeavor. So you up to it?"

"Sorry, Greg, like I said, I'm busy," Nick insisted.

Greg sighed. "Fine… OK. Yeah."

"You sound particularly disappointed," Nick noted. "Is it your birthday or something? We didn't all forget, did we?"

Greg laughed. "No, it's not my birthday. But you're very astute. I am a little disappointed. But c'est la vie, right?" He paused. "Hey, uh… Nick? You're really good at that."

"Good at what?" Nick asked.

"Reading people," Greg explained. "I always know that if I need someone to talk to, you'd be there."

A tinge of red crept into Nick's cheeks. "Yeah, Greg, that's right… do you need to talk about something?"

"No, no," Greg told him. "I just wanted to tell you that you're one of my best friends. Is that weird?"

Nick was gobsmacked. He blinked a few times.

"Nick?"

"No, that's not weird," he said suddenly. "You're… you're one of my best friends too, Greg."

"Seriously?"

He hesitated. These were things Nick didn't take lightly, but… "Yeah, seriously."

"Awesome. You get back to your case. I'll call you later."

And then, he'd hung up.

* * *

Sara was smiling at him when he had finished. "You told him he was your best friend."

"I didn't know if I meant it at the time, Greg kinda put me on the spot," Nick said quickly.

"But he is, isn't he?" Sara asked. "One of your best friends?"

Nick nodded. "Yeah," Nick said. "One of the very best."

Sara, still smiling, nodded as well. "Mine too. Don't you find it a bit odd that he decided to call us both up and tell us we're his best friends on the night before he was killed?"

"But how could he have known?" Nick wondered. "Unless…"

"Unless what?" Sara pressed.

"Kincaid had threatened him," Nick told Sara.

"We don't know that," Sara said, shaking her head.

"Actually, we do," Nick returned. "Cutler told me, then Kincaid admitted it himself."

"Kincaid _threatened_ him?!" Sara cried. "How?"

"He's part of a group of killers, it's a long story. Point is, if he knew Kincaid's gang was after him, he might have been putting his affairs in order. He may not have known that he was going to die the next day. He might have thought that… that anything could happen to him."

Sara's eyes were wide. "Oh my God… he _did_ kill Greg, didn't he?"

"At the very least, his goons did," Nick agreed, nodding vigorously.

"What do we do?" Sara breathed.

"Tell Grissom," Nick suggested.

* * *

But Grissom wasn't as receptive as they had thought he'd be.

"Brass says no," he told Sara and Nick pointedly. "End of discussion."

"Grissom, I'm convinced Kincaid had something to do with Greg's murder," Nick declared. "You have _got_ to let us open an investigation!"

"Kincaid is FBI territory now, Nick," Grissom said. "If you want to open up an investigation, you'll have to take it up with Deputy Director Spiegelman. He's in charge of this whole thing."

"Great!" Sara cried. "Where can we find him?"

"Right here," came a voice from the door, and Sara and Nick turned to see an older man with an imposing presence. He extended his hand to Nick and Sara respectively. "My name is Don Spiegelman. What can I do you for?"

"Director Spiegelman, I'm Nick Stokes—"

"Ah, yes," Spiegelman said, nodding. "Your friend Greg spoke very highly of you. I hear you're on our case."

"Actually," Sara broke in, "that's what we wanted to talk to you about. Your case."

"I'm sorry, ma'am, I missed your name," Spiegelman said with a smile.

"Sara Sidle," she told him. "I was also a good friend of Greg's. In fact, Nick and I suspect that there's been some foul play."

"Foul play, you say?" Spiegelman said, sounding intrigued. "Well, why do you think that?"

"Your evidence is classified," Nick pointed out.

"I assure you most FBI information is," Spiegelman said with a chuckle. "That's just how we do things. We're overly cautious."

"You destroyed the evidence only a week after you closed the case," Nick returned. "Don't you think that's a little hasty?"

"Maybe a little, but we are on a schedule here," Spiegelman agreed. "Look, if it's just the workings of the FBI that's concerning you—"

"What about Kincaid?" Sara interjected. "He threatened Greg."

"But he never followed through on it," Spiegelman reminded her. "We have no reason to believe that he even has any contact with any one on the outside capable of such a thing."

"Then what about Greg himself?" Sara persisted.

Spiegelman seemed intrigued. "What about him?"

Sara looked at Grissom and addressed him. "The night before Greg died, did he call you? Ask you to go out to dinner?"

Grissom's mouth was half open as his blue eyes locked with hers. "He did. Why?"

"What did he tell you?" Sara pressed.

Grissom glanced at Spiegelman before answering. "He told me that he really respected me. Among other things."

Sara spun around to Spiegelman, triumphantly. "The night before he died, Greg called _all_ of us, trying to get us all to go out to dinner together. We were all busy, and none of us could. But he said things. As if he knew something might happen to him. Why would he do that, unless he knew Kincaid's gang was after him?"

"I don't know," Spiegelman admitted. "And I assure you, Ms. Sidle, we _will_ look into it."

"You will?" Sara asked, her eyebrows raised.

"I give you my word," Spiegelman vowed.

Nick was skeptical. "And then what? When you find out what's going on, are you just going to lock it away in another file?"

"I will inform you myself," Spiegelman promised Nick. "If it's possible to know why he acted so strangely… Although, I must warn you that you'll have to consider alternate explanations as to why he was so open with you."

"What alternate explanations?" Nick exclaimed. "That's the only one that makes sense."

"Nick…" Grissom broke in. "As a CSI, you do have to keep an open mind."

"Nick's right," Sara said. "I… I can't think of another reason why he would act that way."

"I can," said Spiegelman, looking at Grissom. "And you can too, can't you Dr. Grissom?"

"It wasn't in Greg's nature," said Grissom, shaking his head at Spiegelman. "He had none of the usual warning signs…"

"You're saying that him being open with all of you about his feelings for you isn't a warning sign?"

"What are you two talking about?" Nick demanded, sounding almost offended as he looked from one to the other. "You aren't saying Greg committed _suicide_, are you?"

Sara soundlessly fell into a chair in front of Grissom's desk, her mouth partially open as she stared at the wall. "Dear God, they're right."

"What?!" Nick yelled, spinning around to look at Sara. "Don't you say that, girl, don't you _dare_ say that. Greg would _never_ do that, he had no _reason_ to."

"But can you ever really know a person?" Sara returned. "I mean, Greg _was_ good at putting on masks. What did we really know about his personal life?"

"A _lot_," Nick snarled, acting as if she had betrayed him. "Greg was the only son of parents who wanted four kids, born and raised in San Gabriel, California. His parents are named Mark and Olivia. She's of Norwegian decent, he is of English decent. He was an Eagle Scout since he was seven. When he was twelve, he had full orthodontia. He was the captain of his high school chess team. He knew pretty much everything there is to know about the X-Files, and as a teen had a major crush on Gillian Anderson. He lived in New York for a year after college, before coming to Vegas." He looked up at Grissom. "He applied for a job here. That's the first time he met Grissom."

Grissom smiled fondly and nodded. "Yes. We had an opening for another CSI, and he showed up. I told him we didn't have room for a tech, but he insisted that he was the best there was. He was young, but I convinced Ecklie to hire him. We always need some extra help everywhere anyways."

Nick turned back to Sara. "You see? Don't fucking tell me I didn't know anything about Greg."

She watched him inscrutably a moment, blinking every so often, before she replied. "You told me about his youth. Now I'm going to tell you about his adulthood. You forgot to mention that he lost his virginity when he was twenty-two, and that he has always had a fondness for the Cure, Pearl Jam, Pink and Marilyn Manson. Or that his favorite blend of coffee is Blue Hawaiian. He kept his CSI promotion secret from his parents, probably to the day he died. He dated a waitress named Pamela for two years and even proposed to her before she told him that she was already married."

"He never told me that…" Nick whispered.

"No, he didn't," Sara returned, a little annoyed. "He only ever told me because he was too embarrassed about it. And because…" She seemed agitated and pursed her lips as her eyes darted around the room. She sulked in her chair. "Because I was feeling a little down about Hank and he thought it would make me feel better."

Everything was quiet. Deputy Director Spiegelman sighed loudly to break the tension.

"That's all well and good," he said. "But neither one of you has proved to me that he wasn't suicidal."

Sara bowed her head. "No," she whispered. "We haven't."

"I think we have," Nick stated boldly. "Greg didn't kill himself."

"I'll consult a forensic psychologist on the matter, if you don't mind," Spiegelman told them. "If that would be all—"

"No, that's not all!" Nick cut in forcefully. "You asked me to explore other theories, I'm asking you to do the same thing."

"And I will, Mr. Stokes," Spiegelman said. "Now would you let me go and do my job?"

Nick looked about to protest, when Sara said, "Yes. Go."

"Thank you," Spiegelman said, and he was gone again, leaving the three CSIs in silence.

Grissom sat down at his desk and watched Sara as Nick watched him. Sara continued to stare at her knees.

Things remained that way for what seemed like hours, each one left to their own thoughts, and yet each of them wondering what the others were thinking. Nick wanted to pursue the lead. Sara just wanted to crawl into a corner and forget about it all.

And Grissom…

"Nick," he said, shattering the silence. "I want you to look into this."

Nick looked up at him, surprised at first, and then a smile slowly crept across his features. "But you don't know anything about it, right?"

Grissom said nothing, but he did return Nick's smile.

"That's… absurd," Sara said, shaking her head. "Even if we find something, there's no _way_ anything could come of it."

"No," Nick said, shaking his head. "It's not about that anymore. It's about finding out the truth about what happened to Greg. I don't care what'll come of it after that."

"I would like to go on record as saying I want you to be respectful, and be legal," Grissom said pointedly at Nick. "Don't get in the way of the FBI, and don't do anything stupid."

"Yes sir," Nick said with a nod.

"I don't like this…" Sara said slowly, rising to her feet. Nick watched her expectantly and she sighed with a smile. "But I'm in. No way in hell Greg committed suicide."

Nick took Sara's hand and pulled her into a bear hug. "That's my girl!" he exclaimed, and her laughter only egged him on further. They each exited, and Sara cast one last look over her shoulder at Grissom, who was smiling at them as they left. It was the first time any of them had felt genuinely uplifted in the last six weeks.

"Where do we start?" Sara asked Nick.

"You're the one that suggested it," he said, leading her down the hall of the lab.

She furrowed her brow. "I did?"

"His body," Nick whispered.

She blanched. "I can't do that Nick."

His face grew serious and he nodded. "I know. The thought of it terrifies me. But it's the only real piece of evidence that we have left. It's the only thing the FBI can't destroy."

"What about his car at the impound lot?" Sara asked. "It has to still be there!"

"Nah, not after a week, not if the rest of the evidence is gone," Nick said, shaking his head. "We've…" He swallowed. "We've all seen dead bodies before. And we won't be able to recognize him, if… I'm making you feel worse, not better aren't I?"

She forced a smile. "Just a little."

"Gag reflex?"

She nodded, stretching her lips thin across her face.

He couldn't help but let out a small chuckle. "C'mon," he said. "I promise I'll take care of you." He rubbed her upper arm. "Do it for Greg?"

She closed her eyes and nodded faster as she swallowed. She took a deep breath. "Anything for Greg."

* * *

It was a full moon, and Sara felt like a teenager up to no good on Halloween. She refused to do any of the digging, and so Nick had agreed to do it all on his own on the condition that she be the one to open the casket. It wasn't until they had arrived at the cemetery that she realized how disturbed Nick was at the thought of seeing Greg's corpse. Perhaps even more disturbed than she was. But it only underlined his resolve. No matter how scared he was, he was determined to figure out what the FBI was hiding from them.

And so shovel after shovel of dirt, Sara stared at the tombstone with her arms crossed. _Gregory Hojem-Sanders. May 5, 1975- September 14, 2007. Beloved son and friend._ She was reminded, again, that in one hundred years, the tombstone would be all that was left of Greg's memory. She shuddered at the thought.

She felt raindrops on her hair and looked up. A light rain had begun to fall. She glanced at Nick's pile of dirt and noticed rivulets of water beginning to collect and trickle down the sides of it, taking some sediment with it.

And then, Nick's shovel clanged as it hit something hard. Sara thought her heart might have stopped. She looked at Nick and found him looking back at her.

"Is that it?" she breathed, the adrenaline beginning to overwhelm her system.

His eyes wide and his face paler than Sara had ever seen it, Nick nodded. He began to shovel faster, cleaning the dirt off of the casket until they could both see the mahogany. He looked up at Sara again.

"It's your turn," he told her quietly.

She shivered in the cold night air. "Something about this just feels so wrong," she whispered. So very, _very_ wrong…"

"Come on," Nick said. "We're not disrespecting him, we're doing this _for_ him. He would want us here. He would want us to know."

Sara swallowed her unease and descended into the grave. Her feet landed on top of the wood with a thud and she winced as if she was stepping on Greg's actual body. She knelt down on top of it reverently and traced the line near the top where she was about to open it to see his face. She told herself that she had seen plenty of dead bodies before, in worse states of decomp than Greg would be in. Still, the thought of seeing her friend as nothing more than a lifeless carcass…

_"Doc Robbins said, 'That's all we really are.'"_

_"It's what you do with it that counts."_

Sara shut her eyes tight and for a moment tried to pretend that she was somewhere else, somewhere where Greg was still alive, and happy, and they go out to dinner every Friday night, and they have drinks every Tuesday night.

"This is for Greg," she whispered to herself. "I have to do this for him."

"You know what you're looking for?" Nick called.

She looked up to see him standing over the grave with his hands in his pockets, staring up at the sky, purposely avoiding looking into the grave.

"I think so," Sara said. "Anything that may suggest a struggle, or puncture marks for drugs, or something in the bones, or…" She looked back at the coffin. "I'll know good evidence when I see it. I'm no coroner, but…"

She was stalling. She didn't want to open it.

"But I think I can handle something like this. It's not like I'm a novice. I can—"

"Just _do_ it already!" Nick muttered, anxiously.

Sara took a deep breath and her fingers moved to the side of the casket where she found the clasp and opened it. Her fingers explored further and found the groove between the lid and the case. Holding her breath and closing her eyes, she opened it.

She heard it creek on its hinges. Her whole body was tense. She wished she had just volunteered to help Nick dig up the grave. She wished, she wished, she _wished_…

Slowly, she swallowed and opened her eyes before letting out a loud scream.

"What is it?!" Nick cried, sounding absolutely horrified, but still refusing to look down. "Is he… Is it too much? Can you do it? D-do you n-need me t-to help?"

The stutter told her that he _really_ hoped she didn't need his help. "No…" she murmured, breathless. "That's not it."

Nick blinked and shifted on the spot. "What's wrong then?"

She stared into the casket, not knowing what to think. This was a twist in the story she hadn't expected, and she had no idea what it meant.

Greg wasn't burned beyond recognition, in fact, he wasn't even burned at all.

"What's going on, Sara, please _say_ something!" Nick sounded on the verge of panic.

Sara slowly shook her head, completely at a loss. "I… He's…" She struggled to understand. "Nick… He's not even here. It's an empty casket." She looked up at him to see him finally look down at her into the grave. "They buried nothing but _air_."

She saw Nick's baffled expression as he leaned forward to get a better look. She turned back to the empty box beneath her and stared at the satin lining, her brain scrambling to find meaning in the face of this new evidence. Had he been grave robbed? Did someone steal his body? What for?

"Nick, I—" She cut herself off, because when she looked up out of the grave, Nick had vanished.


	4. Lies My Best Friend Told Me

_**Author's Note:**_ Thanks for those of you who reviewed after my last note. It's nice to be listened to, for once. It's also wonderful to get feedback from fresh faces. And thanks to you continuous reviewers, you constantly make my day. I present you with chapter four.

* * *

_"_ _If we were all given by magic the power to read each other's thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be to dissolve all friendships.__"_ --Bertrand Russell

* * *

**Chapter Four**

Sara's breath caught in her throat as she rose to her feet, forgetting the open casket.

"Nick?" she called carefully, making her way to the edge of the grave. But he gave no reply to her query. She grasped the grassy edges and tried to lift herself up to look over, but the rain had caused the top soil to loosen, and the mud oozed out of her grip. She fell back onto her feet in the coffin, mud all over her front, and looked up at the edge of the grave, which was a few inches above her head. If she could only get a good grip, she would be able to hoist herself out of there, but trial and error with the muddy ground proved that that was easier said than done.

"Nick?!" she called again, this time much more anxious. "This isn't funny! Help me get out of here!"

Once again, there was no response.

The rain began to fall harder all of a sudden, and Sara backed away from the muddy wall, having horrible traumatic flashbacks to what had happened to her that summer. And then, she remembered her phone. She seized it from her pocket and dialed Nick's number. It rang a long time before she reached his voicemail.

"You fucking son of a bitch, this isn't a joke!" she shrieked into her phone, the tears indistinguishable from the raindrops streaming down her face. "I need you to help me get out of the fucking place! Where the hell did you go, Nick, I _need_ you, _please_, I _need_ you!" Her breaths came in short bursts as she looked up at the sky, her hair becoming plastered against her head. She took a few more steps backwards and lost her footing when she reached the open part of the casket. Her foot fell down and she banged her knee hard on the lid as she fell backwards into another mud wall of the grave. She cursed loudly then pulled herself back up again, examining her knee for anything worse than bruising. She had a nice gash that had torn its way through her jeans, but she had no time to be concerned about that. She looked at the edges of the grave and tried to figure out what would be the easiest way out. She tried all four walls, and slipped and fell down each time. Each attempt became more panicked as she tried to scamper up the wall of slippery mud. Finally, she gave up and sat on top of the coffin, staring up at the sky. She saw the full moon peak out from between the rain clouds. She swore at it and blamed it for this whole sordid affair. She wasn't superstitious, but it felt good having something to yell at.

Greg's body was missing.

Come to that, so was Nick's.

She would have to call Grissom.

She took out her phone again and held it to her ear. It rang a few times before Grissom answered.

"Hello, dear," he said simply.

"Grissom, I need your help," she said into the phone, trying to keep her voice calm.

"Where are you?" he asked, sounding confused and concerned all at once.

"I'm at the cemetery on Roosevelt. The one Greg's… The one where Greg was supposed to be buried."

"What do you mean supposed to be?" Grissom asked, sounding more intrigued.

"Look, he's not here, alright?" Sara said, losing her patience momentarily. "And neither is Nick. He disappeared. I don't know where he went, and now I'm stuck six feet below ground."

"You were buried?!" Grissom mistakenly allowed an ounce of fear leak into his voice.

"No, I wasn't _buried_," Sara corrected. "I just… We dug up Greg's grave, so we could—"

"You did _what_?!" Grissom cried.

"Just _listen_!" Sara ordered. "We dug up Greg's grave so we could examine his body to see any signs of struggle or poison or drugs or whatever, hopefully by looking at the bones, or if we're lucky, bits of unburned flesh, anything. Only he wasn't here. I opened it up, and there _is no body_. I look up, and Nick is gone, and it's raining, and it's muddy, and I can't get out of this fucking hole!"

"OK, just… stay there," Grissom said. "I'm on my way."

Sara rolled her eyes. "Like I'm gonna go anywhere."

They hung up and she took this time to look at her injured knee. She hugged it to her chest and looked up at the sky, wondering where Nick could have gone to. And where could _Greg_ have gotten to? Who would steal his body? Was it the Chi Tsaran?

A few minutes later, her cell phone was ringing. It was Brass. She answered with a sigh.

"Sidle."

"I thought I told you and Nick to leave Greg's death _alone_," Brass growled into the phone.

"You told Nick," Sara said. "With all due respect, you didn't tell me anything."

"I told Nick, and I told Grissom, that should have been enough for you to know that you are no exception."

"Why are you so upset about this?" Sara asked, and then finally it occurred to her. "You _knew_ there was no body in this grave!"

Brass was silent, and she knew that it was a confession.

"Oh my God! Brass, what did you let the FBI do with Greg's body!"

"The FBI isn't doing _anything_ with Greg's body!" Brass snapped, sounding offended.

"Then where is he?" Sara demanded, sensing he had to be lying. "He's dead, it's not like he can just get up and walk away."

"That's not… entirely true."

Sara's heartbeat quickened. "What?"

"I can't talk on the phone," Brass said hastily. "I'll explain when Grissom pulls you out of that grave. Where's Nick?"

"Like I told Grissom, I don't _know_!" Sara sighed. "He disappeared on me and it's dark and I'm cold!"

"Come on, you've been in worse places," Brass cooed, trying to reassure her.

"Yes, I have, you're right," Sara agreed. "And I don't like being reminded of that fact. And this place _reminds_ me of that fact."

She fought her panic with anger. In the desert, she had fought her fear with logic. Wits. Figuring a way out, solving the puzzle. But there was nothing to do here but wait for Grissom, and that bothered her immensely. She needed something to beat back the anxiety that was threatening to give her a heart attack.

"I'm sorry," Brass told her, sounding genuinely apologetic.

"Yeah, well, you tried to make me feel better. It's OK," she replied.

"Not about that, about what happened to Greg," Brass explained. "You have to know that. Before you learn anything else, you have to know _that_."

She frowned. "What do you mean, Jim?"

"Just… hang in there, OK? Grissom and Catherine are both on their way to help you out of there."

"And what about Nick?" Sara asked.

"We'll find Nick after we help you," Brass assured her.

"And you'll tell us what's going on?"

"Cross my heart."

* * *

Nick's ears were ringing again, like they had done after he had crashed his car into the guardrail. And his head felt as if he had just done eight straight tequila shots and ate the worm. There was something cold and uncomfortable restricting circulation in his wrists. He realized that his arms were asleep and that his feet were barely touching the ground. That meant that he was vertical, or at least sitting down. A quick feel for the rest of his body told him that he was in fact vertical, and that most of his body throbbed painfully, just like his head. He let out a small groan, then moved his head to the side.

He opened his eyes and saw nothing. His eyes weren't adjusted to the lack of light. And even though all he saw was blackness, he felt as if his world was spinning. Maybe he was going to throw up. He wasn't sure, he couldn't quite feel his stomach. But he knew inherently that something was wrong. How did he get here? The last thing he remembered, he was staring into Greg's grave and… nothing. Nothing beyond that. Something hadn't been right. Sara had said something to him about what had happened to Greg, but he couldn't remember what it was. If only his head didn't hurt so much!

"He's awake," said a voice Nick didn't recognize. It was young-sounding, maybe in his twenties. Nick heard footsteps and felt someone's moist breath on his chest. "Where is he?" the voice demanded.

Nick didn't even know who he was talking about and groaned in reply.

"He's not coherent yet," said a second voice, older and more authoritative. "Cool it. You have to wait until he at least understands what you're asking him."

"Can we eat him?" the younger voice inquired. "Because that would be fun."

"You can strip him," the older voice ordered. "But you can't eat him yet."

Nick felt something cold against his chest and something sliced into him. His body tensed and roared in protest, and he let out a low grunt of pain. He felt as if something was being torn away from him. He opened his eyes and blinked a few more times. He screamed louder as the pain became more invasive, a band-aid being ripped off his skin only the pain of it was a thousand fold. Someone was peeling something off of his chest.

There was a snap and the sound of a knife slicing flesh, and then something wet and sloppy landing in a bucket.

"I guess I can save that for later," the younger voice said snidely. "You awake now?"

"What do you want?" Nick breathed, his chest feeling raw and painful.

"We want to know where Greg Sanders is," the older voice yelled. He wasn't as close to Nick as the younger man was. The older one seemed to be somewhere in a corner.

"Greg Sanders is dead…" Nick breathed.

"You can't believe that, surely," the younger voice spat. "If he was dead, he woulda been in his grave."

Nick's brow furrowed in bafflement. "Greg… Greg wasn't in his… his grave?"

"He's a quick one, this one is," the younger one said.

"He's useless," said the older one. "He doesn't know anything."

"How do you know?!" the younger one snapped, sounding angry. "He could. I wanted to see what he looked like without his skin."

"You have your taste of him," the older one said. "Now dump him. He's useless to us."

"Can't we please just kill him?" the younger one begged. "Just a little bit."

"That's not how the Chi Tsaran works. We only kill the ones who deserve it."

"He deserves it," the younger one said, and Nick felt him spit on his face. "I can smell it on him. He's just as corrupt as the rest of them."

"You are too twisted," the older one said, although he sounded more impressed by this fact than disgusted. "Let the man go. Until you can prove otherwise, he doesn't deserve this."

Nick heard footsteps and sensed that the older man was very close to him now. "After all, he just lost his friend. Let's cut him a break."

"What if he talks?" the younger one pointed out.

"And what'll he say? That he woke up in a dark room where some kid ripped off a piece of his skin?" The older one laughed. "He can't see shit in here, can you, Mr. Stokes?"

"You know how who I…" He couldn't construct a coherent sentence. He closed his eyes tight to think. And then, he was struck with a fleeting, momentary clarity. _Chi Tsaran. Anarchist._

"Don't bother thinking too hard about it, Mr. Stokes," said the older voice. Something covered Nick's nose and mouth and for a moment, he thought he was going to be suffocated to death. "You'll soon be far, far away from…" but where he would be far away from, Nick didn't know, because he lost consciousness

* * *

"Sara?!"

She scrambled to her feet upon hearing her name. "Grissom!" she called back. "I'm over here!"

She saw him appear over the grave, followed by Catherine, who inhaled sharply.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Catherine hissed.

The two of them each extended a hand into the grave and Sara took both of them with her own as they hoisted her up. By now, the rain was lessening again and it had almost stopped completely. Such was Sara Sidle's luck.

Finally, she was out of that hole, and her muscles relaxed. She took a deep breath and looked from Catherine to Grissom. Her eyes rested on Catherine.

"Did he tell you that Greg's not in there?" she asked. "See for yourself."

"I… I can…" Catherine murmured, sounding very perturbed. "What happened to Nick?"

"I don't know," Sara said, shaking her head.

"Nick is fine!" called a familiar voice, and they turned to see Brass striding towards them. "I just got a phone call from a reliable source saying that Nick is in his care."

"But why is he there in the first place?" Sara demanded of Brass. "Where did he go?"

Brass reached them and sighed. "You two were being watched by members of the Chi Tsaran," Brass explained. "Which is why I _told_ you to drop this."

Sara was confused. "But why would they watch us?"

"Everything was going fine, until you had to insist that Greg was murdered," Brass growled. He looked at Grissom and Catherine. "Which he wasn't, by the way."

"But how do you _know_ that?" Sara insisted. "If anything, the evidence—"

"Is not telling you what you think it is," Brass interjected. "Look, Sara, there is another explanation for all of this that you haven't thought of because you don't want to."

"Don't tell me he committed suicide, because—"

"Greg's alive," Brass told her, successfully shutting them all up.

Catherine, baffled as she was, was the first to speak. "What? That's impossible, I went to his funeral, we _all_ did! We saw him interred into the ground, we…" She trailed off as she realized that none of them had really seen anything.

"All you saw was a closed casket being buried," Brass told them both, looking at each of them in turn. "But Greg wasn't inside it."

Sara looked catatonic as she stared at Brass. And then, suddenly she blinked and held a hand to her forehead. "I feel dizzy…"

She felt Grissom put his arm around her, supporting her, and then she heard him speak. He was accusatory, angry. Anger did not bode well with Grissom.

"What was the point of all this, Brass? Why did you lie to us and tell us that he's dead?"

"Believe me," Brass told them all sincerely, "it was the hardest thing either of us have ever had to do. Especially Greg. He couldn't stand it. He's even risked blowing his cover just to make sure you all were OK. If it makes a difference, this wasn't my idea, or Greg's. Both of us protested vehemently when we heard the plan, but then…" Brass swallowed. "Greg was attacked by three Chi Tsaran. They had slipped past all the security we had put on him, and they had begun to flay him by the time we showed up. We caught one of them in the process, but he committed suicide once we got him in prison."

"Now I feel sick…" Sara muttered, holding a hand to her mouth. Catherine reached out and took the other one.

"We didn't tell you," Brass said. "And that was our first mistake. And it was clear that the Chi Tsaran knew where he lived, and that they wanted him dead. So Cutler called in Spiegelman for witness protection. We had to have them believe that he was dead. And it was working. Until Sara and Nick decided that they knew better than the FBI."

Sara's knees went weak and she slowly slid to the ground, Grissom following her down.

"Are you going to be OK?" Brass asked, extending a hand to help her up.

She smacked it away. "Don't touch me," she whispered. "I want to see him. Now."

"Easier said than done," Brass said. "Do you know the _meaning_ of witness protection, Sara? I don't know _where_ he is."

"Then find him," Sara said. "Do whatever it takes."

Brass looked up Grissom. "Take her home," he said. "I'll see if maybe I can make a few phone calls." He looked at Catherine. "You can go home too, if you want."

Catherine shook her head. "Someone has to tell Warrick," she whispered.

"Do it," Brass said.

"I'm not going home either," Sara said, shaking her head. She looked up at Brass, disgust in her eyes. "I just found out that my best friend isn't dead. I am not sleeping until I _see_ him."

Brass tried to appeal to Grissom. "Take her home, please."

Grissom said nothing for a moment, and then shook his head. "I'm sorry, Jim. I'm with Sara on this one."

Brass sighed. "Then head back to the lab, all of you. And I'll see what I can do."


	5. Brass's Secret

_**Author's Note:**_ I have started upon another fic which is completely different from what I'm used to. For one, it's a romance more than anything else, and for another it's a couple I have never written before (namely, slash). But I'm still writing this, though this story is coming to a close (I'm on chapter nine in writing, so...) so I'm also writing that other thing. Dunno if it'll be any of your cups of tea, but well... Thanks to Kegel for beta-ing and junk. This chapter does a few time jumps, so just... be wary. In case it confuses you, remember that Greg "died" on September 14th, 2007 and the majority of this fic takes place six weeks after that event.

* * *

_"He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore."_-- Sigmund Freud

* * *

**Chapter Five**

_September 6th, 2007_

"You know this is the only way to go," Spiegelman said, eying Greg closely.

But Greg was shaking his head. "No, I don't need it. I'll be OK."

The four of them, Greg, Don Spiegelman, Max Cutler and Jim Brass all sat in Spiegelman's office at the FBI headquarters in Nevada.

"They nearly killed you," Cutler reminded him, as if he needed reminding.

"So make me disappear," Greg said. "We don't have to keep it from Grissom and the others, they can handle it."

"It's not that I don't believe in Nick and them," Cutler said, carefully "because I do. The death was my idea. Mostly, to protect your friends."

Greg frowned. "I don't follow…"

"If they know, they're targets," Cutler explained. "Everyone in this room now is a target. The Chi Tsaran will use whoever they have to in order to get to you. If you disappeared, it would be obvious that we were involved. But if you died… They'll stop looking."

Greg turned to Brass, shaking his head. "I don't like this, Brass. It feels wrong. It's like what Catherine and Keppler did, only… only worse. I can't do that to them. I won't."

"Don, I don't like this either," Brass said, turning to Spiegelman. "I don't like what this is going to do to our team."

"Don't you see, we're _thinking_ of your team?" Spiegelman returned. "Besides, it's already been decided. You have no choice." He turned back to Greg. "There is a federal marshal waiting to meet you at a location I cannot disclose with Max and Jim in the room. You have a week to get your affairs in order because you die on Friday the 14th."

Greg's jaw clenched and he swallowed. He thought about it for a long time before he nodded. He looked at Brass, then at Spiegelman. "OK," he finally sighed. "I'll do it."

Greg rose to his feet, visibly agitated, and made a quick exit. Brass followed him and caught up to him in the hall.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Brass asked. "We can find another way—"

"And if they really want to kill me, so can they," Greg replied. "I don't want to put my friends on the line. I can't be concerned with risking them by staying here just because I might miss them a little if I leave."

"And what about them, huh?" said Brass. "They should have a say in this."

"And yet, conveniently, if we asked their opinion, it wouldn't be so secret anymore, would it?" Greg grumbled sarcastically.

"I think I can represent their interests," Brass returned evenly. "You're seriously going to have them believe that you're dead when you're not? Do you know what that'll do to them?"

"It's better than if I was _actually_ dead," Greg pointed out.

"They won't know the difference!" Brass exclaimed. "Dead is dead, to them."

Greg stopped walking. "You think this is easy for me, Jim?" he demanded suddenly. "You think I _want_ to do this to them? To you? To myself? But what can we do? Seriously? Kincaid and his crew have a vendetta against me. And the only way that they will stop looking is if I'm dead. Or if they believe that I'm dead. It's up to you to make them believe that. And I wish that didn't involve lying to the people I care about. I wish I could spare them. But if you tell them the truth, and if the Chi Tsaran decide to torture my location out of someone, then my friends will be their prime target."

Brass slowly smiled, biting back the pain rising in his throat. "You're acting like an FBI agent already."

Greg snorted. "I never really wanted to be an FBI agent. I just…" He sighed. "Sometimes, it's nice to explore the opportunities you didn't take. You know what I mean?"

"I'm gonna miss you, Sanders," Brass said, shaking his head.

"Take care of them, would ya?" Greg asked.

"I always do," Brass promised.

* * *

_September 14th, 2007_

Jim Brass sat alone in his car at the end of his shift, the day's events flashing before his eyes. He had hoped that he wouldn't have had to tell any of the CSI graveyard shift directly. He had hoped that he could have just called Grissom with the news. But actually seeing Sara's face when he told her nearly tore him in two. He wished he could have spared them. He wished a lot of things.

His phone began to ring and he looked down at the caller ID to see that it was restricted. Curious, he answered. "Brass."

"How are they?"

The voice froze him. "What the hell are you doing, you aren't supposed to be calling this number!"

"Just tell me. Are they OK?"

"Are you kidding?" Brass hissed. "_No_, they are not OK."

"What did Grissom say when you told him?"

Brass looked around nervously, but he was alone. He sighed and leaned back in his seat. "He asked about the body."

"And what did you tell him?"

"I told him it was burned beyond recognition," Brass replied. "I told him that he wouldn't want to see it, and that FBI coroners were examining it. I told him that they thought it was best to keep the LVPD out of it as much as possible."

"He didn't like that, did he?"

Brass had to smile. "You know Grissom. He doesn't respond well to authority."

"Probably why he and Sara get along so well." He paused. "How... how is Sara?"

"She's..." he bit his lip and shook his head. "By some sick cosmic joke, she showed up at the scene."

"Oh shit..."

"No kidding," Brass agreed. "She saw the wreck, began asking questions, and I... Jesus, Greg, you have no idea how hard it is to lie to them."

"You have no idea how hard it was to leave them," Greg replied, sounding regretful.

"There's no turning back now. You know that." Brass felt it was absolutely imperative that he drilled that into Greg's mind. "If you keep doing stupid things like contacting me, you could be found out."

"I know," Greg said firmly. "I know. But I..." Brass heard him sigh on the other end, sounding frustrated. "I couldn't just leave them like that, Brass. I feel all disgusting about this."

"Yeah, and you're gonna start feeling all dead if you ever contact me again," Brass insisted. "Never again, Greg."

"What about the others?" Greg said quickly.

Brass held his breath a moment. "I can't tell you, Greg. I haven't seen them."

"Right... Right." Greg was dejected, and it was no mystery as to why. "Hey, um... Can I ask you a favor?"

"So long as it doesn't involve you calling me again," Brass told him.

"Yeah, um... Make sure they're OK. Like... help them feel better. Help them... miss me less."

Brass smiled and he nodded before remembering that Greg couldn't see him. "Yeah, kid. I just wish I could do the same for you."

"Yeah, me too," Greg whispered. "Goodbye, Brass."

"Goodbye, Sanders."

There was a click, and just like that, Greg Sanders was dead again.

* * *

_September 28th, 2007_

The caller ID said restricted, and so he gritted his teeth, not wanting to answer. He had a terrible feeling that he knew who was on the other line. He was in the hallway of the CSI lab, all in all, not the best place to be. But it kept ringing, so Brass answered.

"This better be good."

"How did you know it was me?"

"I had an inkling," Brass replied. "What's up? And be quick."

"How was the funeral?"

"What?!" Brass hissed. He got a funny look from Hodges as he passed by. "Look, I can't talk out here, hold on." He ducked into an empty layout room. "You called me to ask about your funeral? For all I know, my phone has been tapped!"

"It hasn't been," Greg said. "Remember? The FBI set me up with an encrypted line. So tell me how it was? I want to know what was said. I want to know how people were."

"I wouldn't know," Brass replied. "I didn't go."

"You didn't go to my funeral? Brass, I'm offended!"

"Bite me," Brass snarled. "You aren't really dead, so there was no reason to go."

"You're the one always on my back about not blowing my cover," said Greg. "Weren't the others confused about why they didn't see you there?"

"Grissom mentioned it," Brass said. "I told him that I had to do something for Spiegelman."

"And he bought it?"

"They're grieving," Brass whispered. "They're not exactly at the top of their games."

Greg was quiet a moment. "I miss them, and it's only been a few weeks."

"They miss you too," Brass told him, a fondness in his voice. "They really do."

"I haven't been able to sleep, thinking of them," said Greg. "I just lay there and I think about what they're going through, thinking I'm dead and… And I wish there was just a way that I could help them move on."

"Maybe if you stopped calling me, it might help _you _move on," Brass told him.

"Look, actually, I have information for you," Greg said, his voice suddenly very business-like. "The Chi Tsoran told Kincaid about the crash. They told him that I'd already gotten what's coming to me. But Kincaid didn't buy it. You'll have to fool him."

"How do you know that?" Brass breathed.

"There's a mole in their ranks," Greg said. "He's been reporting to me."

Brass's temper flared. "Greg, you were taken _off_ this case. I don't want you to look into it any further. You are not _trained_ for this kind of thing. Get _out_ of there!"

Greg said nothing.

"_Greg_!"

"Stop saying my name!" Greg bellowed. "OK. OK, I'll get out of it."

"Good," Brass whispered. "Good. Now go back to being dead before someone sees me talking to a ghost."

There wasn't even a goodbye. All Brass heard was a click.

* * *

_October 12th, 2007_

"What do you think?" Grissom ask, shoving folders across the desk. He looked nervous and uncomfortable, like a student submitting their thesis to an overly critical professor.

Brass took all of the folders in a stack and opened the first one where a smiling young face was staring up at him. "Jack Addy," he read aloud. "Graduated from Yale with a… _two_ degrees in forensics and criminal justice. Worked six years for the Boston Crime Lab… Married, two kids. Moved to Vegas because of wife's job. Charming." He closed the file and handed it back to Grissom. "Have him in for an interview."

Grissom was confused. "You're just picking the first applicant off the deck?"

"I have to kick-start you somehow," Brass said. "You've been putting this off for weeks."

"It's not easy," Grissom said, leaning back in his chair and shaking his head. "I've interviewed about a dozen people this week and none of them… None of them interest me at all."

"Because none of them are Greg?" Brass wasn't asking so much as stating.

Grissom sighed. "What about the next one?"

Brass opened the file. "Angela Brennan," he read. "Graduated from…" He chuckled. "Cambridge University with a doctorate in forensic anthropology. Worked in L.A. for three years, left because it… And I quote… 'was boring.'" He looked up at Grissom and cocked an eyebrow. "How about her?"

"She doesn't catch my interest either," Grissom said absently, shaking his head.

"Yeah, seems as dull as downtown Los Angeles," Brass commented sarcastically.

"Greg, he interested me," Grissom told Brass with a vague smile. "Did I ever tell you about _his_ job interview?"

* * *

_August, 1998…_

This was the last thing Grissom wanted to do. He had been fond enough of his old team, before half of them got fired and the other half were assigned elsewhere. And now he had to assemble a whole new team together of kids who, for the most part, were probably fresh out of college, or grad school if he was lucky. He had already gone through five interviews that day, and all of them were exactly the same. He looked at the list and noted his two o'clock. Gregory Sanders. Sounded promising. Except for the fact that he was late.

The first time Gil Grissom laid eyes on Greg Sanders, he was chewing bubble gum and listening loudly to some booming headphones. He walked into Grissom's office and slid into the chair in front of his desk, not taking off his head phones. He looked more like a high school dropout than a serious applicant. He wore a button down shirt with a crazy pattern and his brown hair looked as though he had woken up and refused to wash or brush it for three days straight. The backpack he'd brought in with him was thrown onto the ground and Grissom wondered if he had the right office.

"Can I help you?" Grissom offered.

The strange youth pulled off the head phones and flashed Grissom a goofy grin. "Hey," he said. "I'm here for the interview."

Grissom looked at his list again, then up at this odd person who sat before him. "_You're_ Greg Sanders."

"That's the name my mom writes on my underwear," Greg replied. Grissom did not look amused, so he added quickly, "It's a joke, sir. I know my own name."

"I'll bet," said Grissom. "So why did you apply for this job?"

"I like working with my hands," Greg replied, turning them over and examining them. "Plus, I like crime. I mean stopping it. You know. With science. And mind powers." Grissom raised an eyebrow. "That was a joke too, sir."

"Right," said Grissom. "And what makes you think you'd make a good CSI?"

"A CSI?" Greg blinked. "Nah, I'm no good with dead bodies."

Grissom was confused. "Then what are you doing here?"

Greg slid a printed out email across Grissom's desk. "School sent it to me," he said. "Heard Vegas was looking for a new lab tech."

Grissom looked at the email address in the top of the paper. "You went to Stanford?"

Greg shrugged. "It was OK."

Grissom looked skeptical. "And you _graduated_?"

"What's your point?" Greg asked, straightening up in his chair. He leaned forward. "I know what you're thinking," he said.

"You couldn't possibly," Grissom replied, shaking his head.

"No, I do," Greg said. "You're thinking, 'What's a slacker like this think he's doing applying to work in the second best criminal lab in the country? He doesn't have any experience, he doesn't even have _manners_.' But I'll tell you what I do have, sir, and that's an aggressive attitude when it comes to chemistry." He pulled out a file from his backpack and handed it to Grissom. "You'll find my resume along with two letters of recommendation, one from my grad school chem professor and another from my part-time employer at a local funeral home in San Jose. I did good work there, sir, graduated with honors too. I am _over_ qualified for that job."

Grissom looked over the file and had to admit that it did look far more impressive than the boy's physical appearance. But he closed it just as quickly and pushed it back over the table to Greg. "I'm sorry," he said. "But that position's been filled. We're only interviewing CSIs today."

Greg's face fell, but he recovered quickly as he shifted in his chair. "Well I can do that too."

"I thought you said you were no good with dead bodies," Grissom pointed out.

Greg looked surprised. "Sir, I worked at a _funeral home_," he replied. "I can handle dead bodies."

"Why didn't you say so before?" Grissom asked.

Greg opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again. He bit his lip before finally answering. "Because, sir, I thought that if you figured I was good with bodies, you'd make me a CSI, and that's not what I really wanted, sir."

"But you want that now?" Grissom asked, losing interest.

Greg sighed. "Listen, I'm going to level with you. I just up and left California about six months ago. I went to New York with everything I own. But there was nothing there, you know what I'm saying? I mean, beyond the girls and the clubs— and Reggie, the one-legged homeless guy who lived outside my loft— I gave him a quarter every day, or I tried anyway, when I had a quarter to spare—"

"Is there a point to this?" Grissom interrupted.

Greg nodded quickly. "Well, New York wasn't too kind to me. So when I got that e-mail, I figured, Vegas! Awesome! So I packed my things and came over here and I gotta say so far Las Vegas hasn't been much nicer than New York, you know... And if I don't get this job, I'm behind on the rent, and I'll be homeless for sure, just me and Reggie sharing a box. Can't you cut a guy a break?"

Grissom leaned back in his chair, thinking there was no chance in hell he was going to hire this clown. "I'm sorry," he said. "But your qualifications suit you for lab work and what we need are CSIs."

"I can _do_ that, sir!" Greg insisted, losing some of his cool confidence all of a sudden. "Listen, I can do _anything_ when I set my mind to it, just read the recommendations, _really_, sir. Give me a chance, I promise I'll come through for you. Don't you ever just take a risk every once in a while?"

"Not with who I hire," Grissom replied, but he opened up the file again nonetheless and skimmed the recommendations. He was suddenly surprised at why Greg had provided them. The professor's spoke about how he was always disrupting class and raising irritating questions and writing ludicrous essays on his exams that were completely off topic, particularly since most of the exams were multiple choice. The mortician's from the funeral home was more promising, saying that Greg was always prompt but never thorough and had to be reminded to do simple things like close caskets. But then, Grissom reached the ends of each of them in turn. The professor's letter read, "And it is because of all these eccentricities that Greg would make a fantastic lab technician. He thinks of the things no other student in the class considers, he works until he finds an answer, and he always is diligent and precise when working with biochemical samples like DNA."

The mortician's read, "All in all, Greg Sanders was a terrible match for the funeral home, but when it came to the little things he was the most attentive person I've ever seen. He would catch things on a corpse that had been missed and do things that I had forgotten. Once he found strange hidden ligature marks on a supposed suicide that reopened an entire case. I strongly suggest he be hired in the criminalistics field."

Grissom looked up over the file at the ragamuffin in the seat before him. All of his other interviewees had worn crisply ironed shirts, the men with ties, the women with a few buttons undone on their blouses. All of them were faceless to Grissom now, forgettable, their qualifications generic and dull, their personalities as interesting as a golden retriever's. They were a bunch of yes-men, eager to please, without an original thought in their heads. In short, they were dull. And Greg Sanders, Grissom had to admit, was at least interesting.

He sighed and pushed the file back across the table, staring at Greg Sanders for a long time. Finally, he sighed. "Alright," he said. "You're hired."

"As a CSI?" Greg asked.

"As a lab tech," Grissom corrected.

"You said that spot was filled…Oh." Greg trailed off as he realized Grissom's technique.

"It is now," said Grissom. "You start tomorrow."

Greg beamed. "Thanks, sir, I won't let you down."

"One more thing," Grissom said as Greg made his way out. Greg turned and looked at him expectantly. "My name is Gil Grissom. None of this 'sir' crap."

"Yes, s—Gil," Greg said with a grin.

The name, coming from the young new hire's lips, irked Grissom. "Grissom will do fine," he told him.

Greg nodded. "Sure thing, Grissom," he said, and then left.

* * *

_October 12th, 2007_

"Do you understand now?" Grissom asked Brass quietly. "Why it's so difficult?"

"You took a chance on Greg," Brass whispered. "And it was probably the best bet you ever made."

Grissom emitted a tired laugh. "What about the next one on the pile?"

Brass opened it and looked at the name. He looked up at Grissom, who was rubbing his eyes and closed the file again. "I was wrong to rush you," he said, putting the folders down on Grissom's desk. "Take all the time you want."

Grissom shook his head. "It's not just you, Ecklie's on my case too. These are all pre-approved by him. He only looks over the applicant files about once a week. Look how many have piled up in my inbox."

Brass laughed lightly at the small stack that had accumulated. "Well, Ecklie is Ecklie. What can you do?" He approached his friend's desk. "Hey… Hey. Come on. Why don't you take a break? You've been here for hours."

"Working soothes me," Grissom admitted. "Not the best hobby, but…" He seemed to remember something and smiled. "I could be listening to police scanners."

Brass nodded. "Gil—" But he was interrupted by his ringing phone. He answered it without looking.

"Brass."

"Did you tell Spiegelman about Kincaid?"

The color drained from Brass's face. "I can't talk right now, Cutler. Try again later."

"I promise, this'll be the very last time I call you," Greg vowed. "Anders hasn't been in contact with me for a while, and I just want to know why."

"Cutler, I told you to let this go," Brass said through gritted teeth, turning around and making for the door. It was strange speaking to Greg with Grissom at his back. He had to get out of there, but all he found was the hall, which was swarming with people.

"Devon Anders is the mole," Greg explained. "He hasn't fed me anything in two weeks."

"He works for Spiegelman now," Brass said. "So drop it."

"I _can't_ drop it," Greg insisted. "Having Anders made me feel safe. It meant I knew what they knew, and what they were doing, and where they were. What they were planning. Now, I don't know, and I'm terrified. Do they know I'm alive?"

"We're trying to squash that rumor, Cutler, please don't go around spreading it!" Brass hissed antagonistically. He tried desperately to find an empty room.

"So what are you doing to make them think I'm really dead?" Greg asked. "Because if we did all of this for nothing, I am going to be very pissed."

"I don't know, I'm letting Spiegelman handle it," Brass told Greg. "He's better with that stuff than I am."

"Why _me_, Jim?" Greg asked suddenly. "Why all this trouble to get at _me_."

"You're the only FBI agent to…" He trailed off as he finally found an empty room and went inside. He sighed. "You're the only person to ever catch and expose a member of the Chi Tsaran," Brass explained. "It's pretty personal. Not to mention you're a damn good CSI working for what they believe to be a corrupt system."

"Wait, am I still Cutler or am I Greg again? I'm confused."

"If you call this number again," Brass said seriously, his voice low, "so help me God I will tell Spiegelman. I will tell Cutler. And they will take away your phone, and you won't be calling _anyone_."

"But will you answer?" Greg asked curiously, playfully.

Brass growled. "Don't count on it," he said. "You talk to dead people too long, folks begin to think you're crazy. Once and for all— Good_bye_, Greg."

"Goodbye, Brass," Greg said simply, and hung up.

* * *

_October 26th, 2007_

Brass exploded out of the interrogation room and took out his phone.

"Spiegelman."

"What in the hell do you think you're doing, putting Nick on this case?" Brass barked ferociously. "I don't want you touching any more of my guys. I don't want Nick pulled into this."

"You were the one that told me Kincaid didn't buy Greg's death," said Spiegelman. "And you also told me that his friends all do. I thought, What would be better than for Kincaid to see a grieving friend?"

Brass stopped walking. "You _used_ Nick to provoke a response in Kincaid?" he asked, agape.

"I _do_ want him on the case, as well," Spiegelman said. "Especially if he's as good as Greg and Max said he was. But yes. I took advantage of an opportunity."

"Well it didn't work," Brass growled. "Nick accused him of murdering Greg."

"Excellent," said Spiegelman. "Now would he have thought of something like that if he had just been acting? He's in mourning, Jim. He's grasping at straws, looking for someone to blame. That oughtta convince Kincaid."

"I want out of this operation," Brass demanded. "And I want Nick out too. We already lost Greg, and I don't want Nick to follow the same path he did."

"What happened to Greg is sad, but necessary," Spiegelman said. "None of us wanted him to become a target. But we had to hide him, otherwise he'd probably be dead by now. You can't blame us for that."

"You exploited Nick's pain, and I can blame you for that!" Brass snapped. "Listen, I'm telling Grissom not to let Nick investigate into Greg's death. That case is closed, as far as they're concerned. You leave Nick Stokes alone, do you hear me? You want forensics experts? Bring in your own!"

And with that, he hung up.


	6. Found and Lost

_**Author's Note:**_ A few things: First of all, I could complain about the lack of reviews-- but I won't. So second of all, I will address the questions of those who did review. I would like to thank jiejiel for pointing out something I forgot to mention last chapter, but making me happy in the process. The names of the applicants Grissom is looking over when he's trying to find a replacement for Greg are combinations of names from the TV show _Bones_, the recent finale to which I am quite annoyed at. But I digress. Secondly, to Mma63: I believe Nick explains where he was at Greg's funeral in chapter two, but if not, I know he explains it here. ;o) Thirdly, this is a shorter chapter, so I could end chapter seven in the right place. But last chapter was long, so I think it'll be OK.

* * *

_"Anger ventilated often hurries toward forgiveness; and concealed often hardens into revenge."_ -- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

* * *

**Chapter Six**

He woke up in a car. He couldn't see it, but he could feel the bumps along the way. His headache had not diminished and he tried to roll over when he found a cushioned wall. Now he was confused. He had expected to be in a trunk, or in the back of a truck, but now…

His hands were free. He felt what he was lying on and it was soft, like velvet. He had a cramp in his neck and he stretched it out, letting out a low groan.

"Try not to move," said a familiar voice in the front seat.

Nick's mind was so muddled, he couldn't identify the speaker, but his tone was warm, concerned. Not at all what he had expected after being abducted.

"What's…" He coughed. His voice was as dry as the desert, and it felt as if he had swallowed a gallon of sand.

"Talking isn't such a good idea either," said the driver. "You're wiped from the drugs they used to knock you out. Probably chloroform, but I don't know."

Nick took his advice and was silent for a while. The movement of the car didn't help with his head ache. Slowly but surely, he became more aware of himself. He was lying in the passenger's seat of a car. It must have been new, because the distinctive smell of new car infiltrated his nostrils. He stretched out his cramped legs.

"I thought I told you not to move," the driver reminded him.

Nick blinked. The driver's seat was in front of his face, gray and blurry. He couldn't see who he was with. He tried talking again.

"Who…" But his voice was too scratchy.

"If you insist on talking, there's some water on the floor," the driver told him.

Nick blinked and saw a bottle rolling around behind the driver's seat. He took it and unscrewed the cap before taking a few sips. The water was like a miracle cure. It soothed his tired throat and even helped him to wake up a little, although his head was still pounding.

"Who are you?"

The driver didn't reply.

Nick moved up, trying to regain his senses. He leaned against the window and looked over at the back of the driver's head, though it was still blurry. There was a sharp pain in his chest when he moved, and he wasn't sure why. "What's going on?"

"You and Sara were followed to the cemetery by the Chi Tsaran. Consider yourself lucky that I was following you too."

Nick blinked to rid himself of his spotty vision. "They took me?" he guessed.

"Pretty fast," the driver verified. "Had you unconscious in under three seconds. Sara didn't even hear them. Be careful with your chest. I bandaged it as well as I could and the bleeding's stopped, but it'll hurt if you move too much."

Nick looked down at his shirt, where he saw a strip of dry blood down the left side of his chest. He touched the area lightly with his fingers.

"What happened to me?" he asked.

"Don't worry, the same thing happened to me." The driver held up his forearm, where Nick saw a large scar from his elbow to his wrist.

"Who _are_ you?" Nick asked again, his vision becoming clearer.

"You know who I am, Nick," the driver replied.

His voice was eerily disturbing. Nick straightened up in his seat and caught the driver's eyes in the rearview mirror. "Jesus Christ…" he breathed. "Gr… Greg?"

"You have no idea how many times I've gone over this moment in my head," Greg said. "But it never involved you waking up in the back of my car."

All of a sudden, Nick was very lightheaded. "This is a nightmare," he groaned.

"Why do you say that?" Greg asked.

"Because you're _dead_!" Nick growled angrily. He tried desperately to make sense of all of this. His mind grasped for reality. Was he hallucinating? What had the dosed him with? This couldn't be Greg. _Damn_, his head hurt. "I don't… I don't understand…" he said.

"It's complicated," said Greg. "I'm… not sure how to start."

"You're dead…" Nick said again. "You're… you're _dead_…" Was he going crazy?

"I know that's what you thought," Greg began. "But obviously, it's not true." He glanced over his shoulder at Nick and the latter caught a fleeting glimpse of his old friend.

He felt like he might throw up. "Stop this car. Stop it now."

"We should talk," Greg said. "You're right."

He pulled over to the side of the road and as soon as he hit the breaks, Nick threw open the door and tried to stand up. He became intensely dizzy and had to fall back down into a sitting position.

Greg opened the driver's door and came around to Nick's side as he caught his breath. He knelt down in front of his old friend.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"Yes, something's wrong!" Nick panted, with as much fury as he could muster in his weakened condition. "It's hard to make a dramatic exit when you can't stand up!"

"Exit?" Greg pulled away, confused. "You don't even know where we are."

"And I don't even know who I'm with," Nick spat with contempt. He looked up for the first time to see Greg Sanders kneeling in front of him. The sight made his heart stop, his breath hitched in his throat like a sweater snagged on a nail. Greg was staring back at him with wide brown eyes, blinking, breathing, living. He had grown some stubble around his face, as well as a scar cut fresh across his cheek, and his hair was blonde again and longer than he remembered. Of course, he hadn't seen Greg for weeks before he died, so…

"I wish I felt good enough to hit you right now," he said.

Greg smiled. "It's good to see you too."

"No," Nick said, shaking his head until it became too painful. "No, Greg…" He pushed him back and tried standing again. His knees held him, and he ignored his throbbing head. He walked away from Greg and looked up at the sky. "I seriously have this insane urge to kill you."

"I understand that," Greg said quietly. "But we didn't know what else to do. I did it to protect you."

"To protect _me_?!" Nick demanded, whirling around to face Greg so fast his head wouldn't stop spinning. But he ignored it. "You _died_. I watched them bury you. I was so scared, I didn't even get close enough to the coffin because I was afraid of seeing your dead body. I tried to go into the church for the service and I couldn't. I have been to your hollow grave every day for the past six weeks. You put me through hell." He laughed, exasperatedly. "You know the irony of this whole situation? I would have gone through hell, do anything, if it meant I could get you back. If it meant I could save you. And so, look at that, I did. And you're here. And I feel nothing."

Greg was dumbstruck. He did nothing but stand there and stare at Nick. And then, he moved toward him. "Nick… I really wish I knew the right thing to say right now…"

"Don't say anything," Nick muttered, shaking his head. "I can't even…" He swayed on the spot and Greg went to support him. Needing him, but hating it, Nick allowed him to lead him back to the car.

"I need to get you home. You're too out of it, you don't know what you're saying."

"I know exactly what I'm saying," Nick growled as Greg helped him back into the passenger seat. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "My God, Greg… God, I missed you so much…"

Greg looked sharply away from Nick and closed the door to the car before stepping into the driver's seat. He looked at Nick in the rearview mirror. "You have no idea how much I wish things were different, Nick," he whispered.

Nick just stared out the window. "Just take me home."

Neither of them said a word for the rest of the way.

* * *

Brass told them everything he knew. They were all gathered around a table in the layout room, with all of their attention invested in Brass's words. Warrick sat closest to him, and beside him sat Catherine, beside which sat Grissom, and finally Sara at the very end of the table, her eyes cold as they never left Brass's face. All of their insides were churning as he spoke, and each of them reacted to the story internally, while their expressions remained inscrutable.

He hadn't told them about Nick yet.

"He called me three times in the last six weeks," Brass told them. "Until I finally told him that if he called me again, I would not answer. He called me today, and I ignored it. And the idiot left me a message."

"What did it say?" Catherine whispered anxiously when Brass didn't continue.

The detective sighed. "Greg had found the body of Devon Anders, an FBI mole within the Chi Tsaran. He said he had a 'feeling' that they knew he wasn't really dead. And then he told me he was in Vegas.

"He watched you folks from a distance." He looked pointedly at each of them. "Every one of you. And then he saw Nick and Sara leave the lab. Followed by another car. He panicked. He called me again, but I hadn't checked my messages yet, and I ignored his second call as well. So he drove off after both cars and watched them park by the cemetery. He saw them take Nick."

Warrick tensed, and Catherine squeezed his hand. "Where is Nick?" Warrick growled through gritted teeth.

"He's fine," Brass assured him. "They didn't want to kill Nick, just gain information from him. They determined he didn't know anything, dumped him on a park bench and left him there. That's where Greg picked him up."

"He's with Greg?" Grissom asked, his voice steady.

Brass nodded. "But I don't know where that is. I can't call him to ask, because I don't have his number. His last call to me was only about five seconds long, in which he told me that Nick was taken, and that he had found him. He didn't even wait for me to say anything before he hung—" Brass stopped talking as his belt began to buzz. Everyone in the room held their breath and the detective looked down and picked up the phone, holding it to his ear.

"Greg?"

* * *

_August 23rd, 2007_

Greg parked across the street from his apartment, making note of the black Chevy parked opposite of him. He got out of his car with his hands full of groceries and passed in front of the other car with a nod at those inside. He saw the driver tip his hat at Greg, and in the passenger's seat, a young redhead he knew as Agent Nora Pine gave him a friendly wave. He struggled to find his keys to the apartment door and then finally succeeded and opened the door, taking the elevator up to his floor. Nothing was different about this particular night to Greg. It had been a long day. The FBI had him sorting through miniscule amounts of DNA evidence found at various scenes in hopes that he could unmask other members of the Chi Tsaran. This sort of tedious behavior was becoming routine, and Greg missed his friends, as well as his job at the Vegas lab.

He turned the key in the lock, balancing the sack of groceries against the door, and stumbled inside. The next thing he knew, he smelled something disgustingly sweet, inhaled sharply in surprise and the groceries tumbled from his grip, a can of tomato soup rolling under his couch...

When he came to, he was strung up from his wrists like an effigy in the middle of his own living room. The wire was suspended from the ceiling, his feet barely touching the ground and his throbbing head lolling forward. He couldn't move. He felt too lethargic, and even thinking about moving was taxing.

He felt the presence of someone else very close to him, breathing onto the skin of his back. No words were said, but he felt the tip of a frozen blade slice smoothly into his skin at the top of his wrist. He winced, but did not scream as the blade slid down the length of the arm and he saw blood drip from his elbow and onto the floor. Greg took a trembling breath, but didn't dare speak. Someone else was kneeling at his feet, making a long incision from his ankle to the back of his knee. Greg inhaled sharply, biting down to hold the pain in. Slowly, the facts added up in his mind and he knew that the Chi Tsaran were going to flay him alive.

Now wasn't the time to break down. He couldn't give them that satisfaction. A tear leaked from his eye as flashes of what his friends would think raced behind his closed eyelids. A bloody corpse hanging from the ceiling, its skin completely gone, eaten by cannibalistic anarchists who didn't understand the irony of their organization.

The man at his arm cut across his elbow, and dug the blade beneath his skin, making Greg cry out as a strip of it was ripped off like a band-aid. Greg began to sob in earnest, the pain and the horror of the situation overwhelming. And then, he remembered for the first time that his apartment was bugged. Forget being brave! Now was the time to scream! And scream he did, as loud as he possibly could as the assailant on his arm made another cut, intending on repeating the process just as the man at his feet made a cut beneath his knee and the knife slithered beneath his skin...

There was a clattering crash and the door broke down. "FBI! Freeze!"

The lights were on, but the men in his apartment were wearing masks of old presidents. Greg was in too much pain to appreciate the statement they were making. Upon seeing the two officers that broke in, the assailant by his leg rose to his feet, wearing a Clinton mask. He raised the knife high and made to bring it down into Greg's chest when there was a bang and Clinton dropped the knife, his arm wounded. Greg looked right to see Max Cutler, clad in a fedora that reminded Greg of old PI movies, holding a smoking gun.

The man who had been behind him cutting in his arm had made for the window, but Nora ran after him as Cutler went to let Greg down.

None of them had expected a third attacker.

There was an earsplitting crack that ripped through the air. Greg was confused. Had Nora fired at the attacker running for the window? But all the color was gone from Cutler's face and his eyes were wide, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that something had gone wrong. Cutler whirled around on his heal and quickly drew his gun to find that a man in a Nixon mask already had his trained on him. The man in the Clinton mask was cradling his arm as he climbed out the window. The third attacker was already gone. But worst of all, only feet away from the window, lay Nora Pine, her red hair sprawled out on the floor and mingling with her blood as it surged out of the back of her head. Her glassy blue eyes stared at Greg's wall.

"The police are on their way," Cutler barked authoritatively. "Drop your gun, you have no chance."

"Or we could all be dead before they get here," said a young man's voice behind the mask.

"If you move an inch, you can rest assured that you'll be the only one who's dead," Cutler growled. Greg squinted at Cutler's back, which was trembling, even though his gun hand remained steady.

"I'm not afraid of death, Agent Cutler," said Nixon, almost mockingly.

"Fine," Cutler said, and there was another crack. Nixon dropped his gun and clutched at his right shoulder with his left arm. "I suspect you might be just a little afraid of _pain_ though." He approached Nixon, who as leaning to the side as he tried to stop the bleeding, and quickly. "What are you?" Cutler asked, sinisterly. "Eleven? Twelve?" He put on a deep, mocking voice. "'I'm not afraid of death.'" Cutler kicked Nixon in the shins and he fell to his knees. Cutler grabbed him by the collar, holstering his gun angrily as he ripped off his mask to see a boy no older than twenty, gasping for air from the pain. He threw the kid on the ground mercilessly and stood over him aiming his gun again. The kid wasn't as confident without his mask, or his gun and he scrambled into the corner, still clutching at his bleeding shoulder, tears streaming down his face.

Now, Greg noticed, Cutler's gun hand was shaking.

"Max…" Greg choked, making the FBI agent stop and look over at him. He saw Cutler's desperate, wild green eyes as they stared at him, the sweat evident on his brow, his teeth clenched. He looked back at the boy bleeding in the corner who was watching him, waiting for the agent to determine his fate.

"Don't," Greg said as firmly as he could.

"He killed Nora…" Cutler breathed, his voice trembling. He kicked the kid in fury, and the boy grunted and his whimpering grew louder. "You killed my _partner_, you rat bastard!"

"Max, I need your help," Greg begged, becoming dizzy from blood loss. Cutler looked back at him and then at the boy on the floor. There were sirens in the distance that grew louder by the second, and Greg saw blue and red flashing outside of his window.

"Max, I'm bleeding here," Greg begged, and inhaled with a hiss as a wind blew in threw the window, irritating his open wounds.

Breathing hard, Cutler holstered his gun once more and nodded, turning back to Greg. The boy scrambled to sit up as three other FBI agents entered the room and detained him.

"That bastard shot me!" the kid wailed, hysterically.

"He killed Nora…" Cutler told them frankly, his voice dead. He turned back to Greg and smiled, which forced the tears to spill out of his eyes. "But not you."

"Not yet," Greg said, meaning it as a joke, although he felt it came out wrong.

Cutler cut the wires that suspended him off the floor and Greg fell on top of him, but the FBI agent caught him and held his waist. He called over his shoulder. "We need a paramedic!"

And then, Brass came running through the door, as pale as the moon and he saw Cutler struggling with Greg.

And after that, Greg lost consciousness.


	7. Life and Death

_**Author's Note:**_ This story is finished (as in I'm done writing) except for the final scene which I'm working on. Recently, I've become fascinated with my next story, which is always a problem. That's why this update took so long, though. It's been done for a while, I just... never posted until now. If anyone reading this is interested at all in Nick/Greg slash, that's what my next project is. I've never done it before, so I decided to give it a shot. And then I realized how much fun it is. Interesting factoid about that: It takes place in season nine. Which means Sara is no longer in Vegas, Warrick is (CENSORED FOR SPOILER'S SAKE), and Bryce Adams is new to the team (played by Lauren Lee Smith). And it's been fun writing her, I can tell you that.

Oh, and I am issuing a cliffhanger warning right now.

* * *

_"Calm down. Deep breaths. And get yourself dressed instead of running around and pulling on your threads and breaking yourself up. If it's a broken part, replace it. If it's a broken arm, then brace it. If it's a broken heart, then face it and hold your own, know your name and go your own way, and everything will be fine."_ -- Jason Mraz, "Details in the Fabric."

* * *

**Chapter Seven**

Greg pulled up to Nick's apartment and got out of the car, where he saw Max Cutler with his arms folded outside of the building. He froze. Cutler walked over to him as Nick got out of the car.

"What are you doing here, Sanders?" Cutler asked flatly. "I thought you were supposed to be in a place where I didn't know where you were."

"Nick was in trouble," Greg said. "It's not like I could leave him there."

"How did you _know_ Nick was in trouble?" Cutler demanded. "You shouldn't be in contact with anyone in Vegas."

"Anders is dead," Greg said frankly. "They found him out."

"Devon Anders?" Cutler asked, paling. "Why?"

"He was a mole in the Chi Tsaran," Greg explained. "He was feeding info to me until Brass told him to give the information to Spiegelman instead. I found his body earlier today. I had to come back to Vegas."

"Why?" Cutler demanded.

"Because I have a bad feeling that Anders told the Chi Tsaran that I'm not as dead as they think I am," Greg told him.

"Your cover wasn't blown," Anders said. "They didn't know where you were, none of us did."

"Look," Greg said. "There was only one person who knew more about this group than me, and I found him flayed and displayed on a hotel rooftop eighteen hours ago. I don't want to run, I don't want to hide..." He looked at Nick, whose face was expressionless before turning to Cutler again. "And I don't want to lie anymore. My friends need me. Or if they don't..." He looked at Nick again. "Then at least I need them. I need them very much."

Cutler handed him a note. "I found this taped on the door."

Greg looked at the note, which had a large 'X' on it. "The Greek letter Chi." He opened it, read it, and looked up at Nick, blanching.

"It's for you," he said.

Nick was confused, but took the note Greg handed him.

_Dear Mr. Stokes_

_Thanks for the chat today, you were very helpful. Please tell your friend Greg we will speak with him again shortly._

_X_

Nick didn't understand. He looked up at Greg, hoping he would explain, but Greg was already on the phone.

"Brass? Where are you? Because we have a problem."

* * *

He followed Nick into the layout room, where he was met with stares from all angles, the coldest of which belonged to Sara. Catherine looked close to tears, Warrick looked suspicious, and Grissom remained as unreadable as ever. Only Brass's eyes were on Nick.

"You OK?" he asked the Texan, who simply nodded and handed Brass the note.

Greg's eyes rested on Sara, whose arms were folded across her chest. Slowly, she rose to her feet, her eyes cold and they never left him as she approached him, and then, they were inches apart, and he could smell her, vanilla and cinnamon like apple pie, and that soft scent made him relax a little, reminding him of the seven years they had spent together.

The next thing he knew, his cheek was burning, and his hand was holding his face as he stretched out his jaw.

"Aw…" he said, his face still stinging as it recovered from the devastating blow. He straightened up and looked at Sara, whose hands were now on her hips. He raised his eyebrows and sighed. "I guess I deserved that."

"Thank you!" Nick exclaimed from over by Brass. "I've been wanting to do that since I first woke up in his car!"

"You son of a bitch," Sara muttered, shaking her head.

"Look, I know you're mad…" he began, then turned to the others and winced. "You're probably _all_ mad…"

"What the hell were you thinking?!" Sara exclaimed, seizing Greg's arm and forcing him to face her.

"I was thinking of you!" Greg returned. "Just like I am right now. Did Brass tell you guys about the letter?"

"Not yet," Brass replied. "I wanted to see it for myself."

"Don't think _you're_ getting off the hook so easily!" Sara growled, turning on the detective.

"I was under FBI orders, which, by the way, I've now broken."

"Don't worry about it," said a voice from the door as a new person entered. "I think Greg beat you to it when he picked up Nick from that park bench."

"Max," said Brass as the agent entered the room.

"Kincaid is dead," he said suddenly.

Greg nodded, as if he had seen this thing coming. "Suicide, huh? That seems to be the trend with Chi Tsaran members in prison—"

"He was murdered, actually," Cutler interrupted. "By a man whose skin he tried to eat. Unfortunately, he chose the wrong con to mess with and ended up with a knife in his aorta. Stupid bastard."

"There is a psychological theory that the consumption of human flesh can permanently alter the mental state of the eater," Grissom put in casually, as if he talked about cannibals every day. "Eventually, their body comes to crave the meat as needed, like the body craves milk when it is low on calcium, or bananas when low on potassium."

Cutler blinked at Grissom, obviously not used to these random little pieces of information. "Right. Whatever."

"Why didn't you tell me this?!" Greg demanded.

"Because I just found out," Cutler explained. "Spiegelman told me."

"Spiegelman's here?" Greg inquired, sounding interested. "Where? I need to talk to him."

There was the scraping of chair legs on the floor, and then Sara pushed her way between Cutler and Greg and out the door. Greg was suddenly very uncomfortable, feeling everyone's gaze resting on him. He bowed his head and closed his eyes before looking up at them.

"Excuse me," he said, and then ducked out the door.

He found her about halfway down the hall, turning heads as he passed through the labs to catch up with her. "Sara!" he called, and she suddenly stopped and spun around to face him, tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Talk to me again Sanders, and I swear I'll hit you twice as hard as before," she warned as she walked backwards toward the door.

"You think that's going to stop me?!" he laughed. "I haven't had the chance to talk to you in over six weeks! Hell, you could threaten to castrate me and I'd still do it."

"Don't rule castration out of the equation," Sara said pointedly. But she had stopped walking, and the hesitation in her eyes told Greg that she wanted him to talk to her.

"Look…" he said as he approached her. He closed his eyes and laughed at his own stupidity. "I'm not exactly the best candidate for witness protection. I can't stand being overlooked. And as I just discovered in the last six weeks, I can't possibly cut all of the ties I have to the people I love." He lowered his voice, as if what he said next was a secret only meant for her ears. "Every day for the last six weeks, all I could think about was what I did to you. How I wanted so badly to see you again, to come back, to come _home_. And I convinced myself that I would, eventually. Maybe after the Chi Tsaran ring had been exposed and it was safe enough, however long that would take. But I knew I would come back, even if it was years later, and I would be able to see you guys again. And I imagined all of these great ways to reintroduce myself to your lives, and _all_ of these scenarios featured me telling you everything, personally. I didn't expect you to go and dig up my grave. I didn't expect them to target Nick. I'm sorry you had to find out that way. But the pain of being away from you was just too much. And when I had the excuse… I came back, watching from a distance. I promised myself that was all I would do. Until I saw them take Nick from the graveyard. But let's face it, this whole charade was unraveling long before that happened." He took a deep breath and tried to hold her gaze, even as he saw fresh new tears blossoming in her eyes. "I don't know about you, but this last month and a half of never seeing you, never talking to you, never just being with you was absolute hell. It was a mistake from the start. I should have seen that I couldn't live without you. I should have known it wouldn't work. I should have known you wouldn't accept it. I hurt you, and I'm sorry."

She took in a quivering breath, as if she may speak, and she tensed her shoulders. He waited on the edge of a cliff for her to react, to do something other than just stand there silently as he went on like an idiot about how wrong he was.

And then, she hit him again, this time on the cheek that held the scar. He winced, but she couldn't have known that the scar was fresh. He straightened up again and nodded.

"OK, I know I deserved the first one, but—"

"Just be glad I didn't castrate you," she hissed through gritted teeth, but her whole body was shaking. She brought her hands up to cover her face and took a deep breath before raking them back into her hair. "I mean, you're standing there talking about the hell _you_ were going through, but at least you knew we were _alive_! I thought you were _dead_. We _all_ thought you were dead. What you did was…" She shook her head, her mouth agape. "I can't even think of a word despicable enough to describe it. It was _low_, Greg Sanders. That's all I can say without getting explicit. I mean… You made Nick crash his car into the _guardrail_, he was so upset!"

Greg was visibly disturbed. "He… he was?"

"He was torn to _shreds_," Sara continued, nodding vigorously. "Weeks afterward, I would catch him alone somewhere, trying to hide the fact that he'd been crying. In fact, just today I caught him crying again. Catherine has been nagging Ecklie to put your picture up in the hall in memoriam, a difficult fight, mind you, because Ecklie said that the honor was reserved for those who died in the line of duty. But she persisted, because she said if anyone deserved it, you did. Warrick has been angrier all the time. Every time I see him, he's on edge. And Grissom just… He just works, all the time now. I barely see him. Around here, your name was taboo. We didn't say it, because we couldn't deal with it, not here. And as for me, I…" She stopped herself, then pursed her lips and gave Greg the toughest glare she could muster. "You should have told us."

"I wanted to, believe me, I did," Greg insisted, desperately. "But they said it could put you in danger, and now it really has. Sara— they cut into Nick's chest, tore off a strip of skin, they did that to me, and I would never forgive myself if they did it to you." He paused. "What about you?" he asked timidly.

Her glare intensified until she just shook her head and then let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "I don't know if I want to kiss you or hit you again." He began to smile before she added, "I'm leaning towards hitting you." She reached up and tenderly traced the scar on his cheek. He winced and pulled away. She took a step backward.

"It's so frustrating, you know," she muttered. "Being furious and ecstatic all at the same time. I hate it. Which makes me just hate you."

He tensed, as if she had hit him again. "Please Sara, say anything, hit me, yell at me, anything, but don't say that."

"I have nothing else to say to you, Greg," she whispered. "Not right now, I can't. I just… I need some time. Just give me some time."

Greg nodded. "I can accept that," he breathed.

She smiled and put a grateful hand on his shoulder. Her brow furrowed and she drew her hand away, closing it into a fist as if touching him had been uncomfortable. "Thank you," she said sincerely, and then walked on down the hall. Greg watched her until she rounded the corner out of sight. He saw Brass walking by, shaking his head and caught him.

"Where's Spiegelman?" he demanded. "I need him."

"I already told him you're back," Brass sighed. "Listen, Greg, if I were you, I'd go talk to Nick. He's really—"

"I know, Nick's pissed, I realized," Greg said quickly. "But I _need_ to see Spiegelman. There's something important I have to tell him."

"If it's about Anders, Cutler already—"

"It's not about Anders," Greg insisted, becoming impatient. "Look… I can't explain why, but I _really_ need to talk to him."

Brass obviously didn't understand. "Great, now _I_ feel out of the loop. I miss the loop I used to be in, can we by any chance get that loop back?"

Greg grinned and patted Brass on the arm. He pursed his lips, thinking for a moment. "Actually," he began, "you're right. I'm in a bit of a jam, maybe you could help me out."

The detective's eyes grew in interest. "What's up?"

Greg took a deep breath and looked around. "Maybe we shouldn't talk out here…"

"That bad?" Brass's intrigue turned into concern. "What did you get yourself into?"

Greg was about to respond when he saw someone walk by him and out the door onto the street. He just caught a glimpse of the back of his head, but he knew it was Spiegelman.

"Never mind—" he said and moved quickly to follow the man.

He burst out of the doors and saw the man he had been chasing a little ways down the block, hunched over beneath a manila envelope which didn't seem to be sheltering him very well from the current deluge. It was dark, and his vision was blurred by the rain, so he only hoped that was him. "Wait!" he called, jogging after Spiegelman.

The man turned and held his hand over his eyes to shield them from the rain. As Greg drew closer, it became obvious that it wasn't Spiegelman, but Grissom. He slowed to a halt when they were six feet apart, his hair drenched in the downpour. Grissom said nothing to Greg, waiting for the younger CSI to speak. And Greg realized that he had to say _something_, or else it would look like he had chased him all the way out here for nothing.

"Wha… Where you going so fast?" he asked casually.

His boss gave him a classic, curious Grissom-look. "Home," he said loudly, to be heard over the rain. "It's the end of my shift. Now if you don't mind, I'm getting wet." He made a move to turn around, but Greg felt that something wasn't right between them.

"No, wait!" he cried, making Grissom pause and reluctantly turn to him again.

"Look, Greg…" Grissom began slowly, searching for the right words. "Unless you have something you want to say, I have nothing to say to you."

This was more awkward than Greg had anticipated. Grissom didn't sound mad at him, but he was obviously _something_.

"I disappointed you…" Greg said slowly.

Grissom closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Greg, I—"

Greg wasn't sure why he had suddenly stopped talking, but Grissom's eyes slowly widened as they glazed over, staring at something in the darkness that was beyond Greg's range of vision. His hand moved quickly to his chest, and for a moment, Greg was afraid that Grissom was having a heart attack when his beloved supervisor fell to his knees.

"Oh my God!" Greg cried out, going over to Grissom as his hand fell away from his chest. Greg's heart leapt into his throat as he saw it was bleeding. His head swiveled on his neck, looking at all of the windows of the buildings that surrounded him for a sign of something, anything, from anywhere. He was panicking.

"NO!" he yelled. "IT WASN'T HIM! YOU SHOT THE WRONG GUY!" He looked around desperately. "HELP! SOMEBODY! PLEASE!"

The tears tumbled down his face, indistinguishable from the rain as he turned back to Grissom on the ground and put pressure on the wound. "Come on…" he muttered as Grissom blinked, his chest rising and falling unsteadily. "Come _on_, Grissom, I'm _sorry_! I never realized… I didn't want this, I swear, _please_!"

He heard someone call his name from behind, but he couldn't take his eyes off Grissom, trying desperately to save his friend. He heard his name again, which was followed by a loud explosion, and Greg felt an intense heat on his back. He looked over his shoulder and felt as if he had just jumped off a very high ledge and was now plummeting down into a valley filled with spikes and demons ready to tear out his liver.

Where the lab had been, there was now a plume of flame and smoke, against which Greg could make out the silhouette of a man staring up at it in awe… and there was someone else, too, someone approaching that man from the side and hitting him hard with a baseball bat.

Greg screamed until something sharp hit the side of his head and he finally hit the bottom of that valley.


	8. Villains

_**Author's Note:**_ I'm still lacking a final scene. I have major writer's block, plus the urge to finish up _Learn To Be Still_ which turned out to be longer than this, ironically... So there may be a delay in the next (and last) chapter. In fact, you can probably most definitely count on a delay. But dammit I will end this thing. It's only one bloody scene. It's not like I copped out in the middle, like I did with _Las Plagas_... Reviews may kick me in gear. That goes double for _Learn To Be Still_, if you happen to currently be reading that piece. If not, then ignore that.

No matter how much I write, or how many times I tell Kegel, _"We write for ourselves! For the exhilaration of putting words to paper and telling the stories we know need to be told!"_ I always end up requesting reviews. I am such a greedy little wench.

* * *

_"I'm finding out I have what this world calls 'friends.' I try to push them all away, they push me back and want to stay, and that's one good thing I have."_ -- Blue October, "It's Just Me."

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

Nick's brain rattled inside his skull, pain radiating from somewhere at the back of it, and he wondered if he had rolled out of bed and hit his head on the end table again. He groaned and tried to feel the back of his head when he realized his arms were bound.

Now, he was afraid.

Bound hands were never good. He flexed his hands and realized that he was hanging from something… _Just like before!_

Suddenly, his eyes snapped open and through his screaming headache he could make out little in the darkness. Suddenly, a bright white stream of light flooded his pupils and he closed them tightly to spare his corneas.

"Hello again, Mr. Stokes."

Besides the echo of the voice, all Nick could hear was his own panicked breathing.

"What do you want this time?" he growled.

The voice cackled. "To taste you," he said casually, and Nick recognized the voice as that of the older man from before.

"Leave him alone," someone else spat angrily from another corner of the room.

Nick's ears strained to hear. "Greg?!" he called into the black. "Are you OK? Did they hurt you?"

As his eyes adjusted in the dark he saw movement in the corner. But Greg didn't answer Nick's calls. "We had a deal, Sykes. You let him go _now_."

"If I recall, you didn't keep your part of the bargain. You failed to deliver—"

"You didn't give me a chance!" Greg barked angrily. "Your sniper is an idiot. He shot the wrong man. And what the hell did you have to go and blow up the lab for, huh?"

Someone pushed someone else in the darkness and Nick heard someone stumble.

"Careful, Sanders, or I'll have you strung up like your friend."

This remark was confusing, but helpful as it told Nick that Greg wasn't bound, at least not like he was.

"Greg?" he called. "What's going on?"

Greg's tone shifted to a softer one when he addressed Nick. "Don't worry about it, Nick, I can handle this."

"Can you?" their antagonist intoned. "You were going to renege on our generous negotiation."

"How do you know that?" Greg growled. "You barely even gave me a chance!"

Nick could now make out two distinct figures facing each other. One began to circle the other as their captor let out a low, amused laugh.

"You think I don't know your type, Sanders? Cops. The self-important cronies of the corrupt government they serve. You don't know the meaning of keeping a promise. I knew that when I let you go."

"What is he talking about, Greg?" Nick asked, his voice gravelly and dry.

"Not now, Nick, just… wait," Greg said, a little more sternly than before. Nick felt like a child being ignored by his father, which bothered him because Greg was younger than he was.

"What deal? What's going on?"

"You see?" their captor laughed. "You even lie to your own people."

"What?!" Nick cried.

"I didn't _lie_ to him," Greg snarled through gritted teeth.

"I am _sick_ of being ignored!" Nick yelled, his voice echoing in the room.

There was silence. And then, the _clap, clap, clap_ of footsteps coming his way. He could make out the mask of Bill Clinton, and noticed that his arm was in a sling. The man's tongue clicked behind his mask.

"Poor boy. It's too bad that your friend never told you that he's one of us now."

* * *

_Five Hours Earlier…_

Greg kicked down the door of the old factory with his gun raised, but there was no one there to greet him. Had he come to the wrong place? Greg shook off his doubts. He had seen the car that had abducted Nick parked outside. This had to be it.

He looked around and took in the looming shadows of the dark machinery when he heard the metallic echo of Nick's scream. He heard low voices, speaking and laughing. He found his way around a massive generator and saw one of them move behind Nick, who was hanging from his wrists. The wire had been thrown over a low-hanging pipe that supported him.

"You'll soon be far, far away from here."

Greg approached the one wearing a Nixon mask. He assumed he was taking the place of the kid Cutler had shot. The rookie was laughing as he watched Nick pass out. Greg shoved the barrel into the small of the kid's back and hissed into his ear. "Don't move."

"Sykes!" Nixon yelled, and the man who had drugged Nick spun around furiously. His arm was in a sling, and he was wearing a Clinton mask.

Greg laughed. "Hey there, Bill. How's the arm?"

"Mr. Sanders," Clinton laughed. "I was wondering when we could get you to show up."

"Nick has nothing to do with this. Let him go."

"In return for what?" Clinton asked.

"Me," Greg said simply. "I'll give you me, just… don't kill him."

"You really think we are going to kill him?" Clinton seemed amused.

"I know you are," Greg replied. "I'm not an idiot. Innocent or not, he's still part of the system you despise."

"If you want him, you'll need to give us more than just yourself in return," Clinton said.

"What, it's an equal trade," Greg said, confused. "What more can I offer you than my life?"

"The life of Deputy Director Spiegelman," Clinton returned.

Greg froze. "That's ridiculous. I can't trade Nick's life for his."

"But you were just willing to trade it for your own. You see? You are hypocrites."

Greg was disgusted with his logic. "How about this. I don't kill Richard Nixon over here, and you let my friend go."

Clinton scoffed. "You think I care about him? He's nothing."

"Do you even appreciate the irony of a group of anarchists?" Greg asked. "I mean, you've even got your own hierarchy. Obviously you're more important than this rookie here." He cocked his gun. "I will kill him, you know."

"I am the teacher, and he is the student," Clinton explained. "We are equally insignificant."

"How charming." He seized Nixon by the throat and aimed the gun at his temple. "So you really wouldn't care if he died?"

"Why don't you kill him and see what happens?" Clinton suggested.

He had called Greg's bluff. Greg threw the boy to the ground, angrily. "Look, I have control over my life and what happens to it. But it's not my place to dictate who gets to live and who gets to die. It's not your place either. So just let Nick go, and you can kill me, skin me alive, just leave that good man out of this. He doesn't deserve to be here. If you knew him, you'd know that."

"You give us Spiegelman, and from there we'll talk," said Clinton.

"Hell no," Greg exclaimed. "I'm not leaving here without Nick."

"You're worried about Nick, but who you should be worried about is the rest of your friends."

Greg was confused. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"We are _everywhere_, Greg," Clinton roared. "We can _destroy_ your entire life if we so chose. Your job, your friends, your family— all of that can be gone in a matter of seconds. Unless you listen to me very carefully."

Greg took in a deep, shuddering breath. "What do you want?"

"You're small time, Greg," Clinton said. "As irritating as you've been…" he gestured at his injured arm, "you are not at the heart of the corruption. Spiegelman is. I will give you Nick Stokes, as a token of good faith and in return, you will lead Spiegelman onto the street outside of your crime lab. We will do the rest."

"And then you'll leave us alone?" Greg asked.

"And then we'll negotiate the terms of our ongoing relationship," Clinton told him.

Greg wasn't sure what that meant, but he was desperate to get Nick out of there. He would figure out the rest later.

"Deal," he said, having the strange feeling that he was signing his life away to the devil.

"Nixon," Clinton hissed, kicking the boy on the floor. "Go cut Mr. Stokes down and help him to Mr. Sanders car."

"Sure thing," said the boy, scrambling to his feet.

"You order him around _and_ call him your equal?" Greg muttered. "Yeah, you're not hypocrites at all."

Clinton said nothing, and Greg couldn't see his face so he could only guess at his expression. "Oh, and Nixon?"

"Yeah?" Nixon replied, as he lowered Nick down from the ceiling.

"Never call me Sykes in front of guests." He walked over to a backpack in the corner and pulled something out of it, wrapped in velvet. He handed it to Greg, who took it reluctantly.

"What's this?" Greg asked warily.

"Your initiation rights," Clinton explained.

Greg unwrapped it and saw a Ronald Reagan mask staring him in the face. Insulted, he threw it on the ground. "No way in hell am I accepting that."

In the blink of an eye, Clinton pulled out a knife and slashed across Greg's cheek. Greg let out a cry, then held his hand there and stared at Clinton, who picked up the mask and shoved it back into Greg's grasp. "I suggest you take it," he urged, threateningly.

Greg fingered the mask and cradled his injured cheek as he watched Nixon pull Nick by the arm over to him.

"Don't carry him like that!" Greg yelled, rushing over. He put Nick's arm over his shoulders and held the weight, casting one last look at the two ex-presidents.

He hadn't known then that he had been playing right into their hands.

* * *

The flames towered over the streets and the hiss of extinguishers echoed off of the concrete walls. Sara blinked her stinging eyes repeatedly as she watched the firefighters beat back the smoke. She couldn't think. So many people injured or dead or missing… so many good people…

She wasn't sure how long she stood there, watching the flames leap up into the night, with ash and dirt on her face and hands. Her mouth was dry and chills danced across her skin, inviting goose bumps. But the burning heat from the inferno made sure that she didn't forget how close she had been to being consumed by them.

She closed her eyes, but the flames still shone through her eyelids, dancing orange and red across her unwilling pupils. She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders, although she was far from feeling cold. She opened her eyes again and sniffed, her eyes watering from the force of the heat. She glanced left and saw Wendy with her hands covering her mouth. She seemed to feel Sara's gaze and turned to meet it, but Sara looked away sharply.

She wrapped her arms around herself, cold and sweating, burning and twisting, flame on flesh…

There was a hand on her shoulder. "You shouldn't be standing so close," rumbled a low, familiar voice. "The heat alone is bad, but something might hit you."

"Any closer and I'd be dead," she replied flatly.

Something warm and sweaty clasped his hand. "Please. Come back with me, Sara. Behind the tape."

She looked up at him. "Because it's just another crime scene, isn't it?" she asked, stiffly.

His chapped lips twisted upward into what might have been a smile in softer lights. He reached up and cupped her cheek in his hand, brushing away some soot from her face. "Thank God you got out."

"God had nothing to do with it," Sara returned spitefully. "It was the end of shift." She took a deep breath. "Where are they? Nick and Greg?"

"Sara…"

"I just got him back, Jim," she whispered. "I just got him back again…"

He reached out and pulled her into his embrace as she buried her face in his shoulder and began to sob hopelessly, completely lost. "Grissom is in critical, but they say he's doing well," he told her, the vibrations from his chest echoing inside of her. "Catherine and Warrick have severe burns. But they weren't near the worst of it, thank God. Hodges was thrown back from the blast… he's unconscious at Desert Palms. We haven't found Henry or Mandy yet… Bobby took the day off…"

"I should have just…" She should have hugged him, held him tightly so she would never let him go.

"You know…" Brass began slowly. "Greg ran out the door right before the explosion. There's a chance that…"

She pulled away and looked at him with eager eyes. "What?" she breathed.

"Jim!" called a scratchy voice, and Sara and Brass both turned to see Max Cutler with a bandaged left arm limping towards them. The side of his face was red and black, and his left eye was swollen shut.

"You should be at a hospital, Max, not here!" Brass ordered.

"Doped up on pain meds," Cutler explained. "I'll be OK." He looked at Sara. "It's the Chi Tsaran. I think they have Nick and Greg. Spiegelman said he was leaving when she saw some suspicious characters hanging about right before Grissom was shot."

Sara's face slowly hardened. "Do you know where they are?"

"Greg mentioned something about an old factory, where they had taken Nick before," Cutler explained. "It's in the industrial district."

"Then let's go," Sara insisted suddenly. She spun around and started walking off down the street. She heard someone begin to follow her.

"Cutler!" Brass shouted. "You're in no shape to go on a rescue mission!"

"I'll be fine," Cutler insisted. "I'm the only one who knows where this factory is." He looked pointedly at Brass. "This one's for Nora, Jim."

Sara waited as she watched the two men, until finally Brass nodded.

"But you stay in the car," he insisted.

Cutler shrugged. "We'll see, Jim."

"You bet we will," Brass replied.

* * *

Nick was confused. He looked from Greg to the man he called Sykes. He didn't understand. "Greg?"

His friend didn't answer his call.

"Greg?" Nick repeated. "Greg, if you're free, run."

Greg's voice floated into his ears, disappointed and dejected. "I can't do that, Nick."

"Why not?!" Nick yelled. "Unless this guy's telling the truth. Unless you're one of _them_!"

"I can't leave you behind," Greg explained. "There's something I need to do. To make sure they don't kill you."

"Bull shit," Nick spat. "You don't have to do anything for me, just get the hell out of here."

Sykes flipped a switch and the factory was flooded with light, which rained down on them from overhanging light bulbs. He saw Greg slowly put on a Ronald Reagan mask.

"Greg? Greg, what are you doing?"

Greg ignored Nick's cries and turned instead to Sykes. "When is this happening?" His voice sounded strange behind the plastic mask, as if it didn't belong to him at all.

"As soon as he gets here," Sykes replied. "And believe me, he will be here soon."

There was the sound of a door slamming that echoed in the large building and Nick held his breath as he heard footsteps. And then, the last man either Nick or Greg had expected rounded the corner, holding a gun.

Nick was relieved, and even uttered a quiet, "Thank God," but Greg was agitated.

"_You_?!" he exclaimed at the newcomer. "_You're_ the guy who's supposed to tell me who I have to kill or what I have to blow up in order to guarantee my friends' safety?!"

"There is a critical lesson you must learn here, Greg," the man said sinisterly. "How many innocent, nameless, faceless civilians are you willing to sacrifice in order to save the life of just one of your friends?" He stepped into the light. "The individual is meaningless. They can be sacrificed to save society. _Not_ the other way around."

"You have a daughter, don't you?" Greg asked. "Wouldn't you do anything to save _her_ life?"

"My daughter is dead, Greg," the man confessed. "She was my loyalty test. And Nick is yours."

"What the fuck are you talking about, loyalty tests?!" Greg demanded.

Sykes stepped in at this point. "In order to prove your loyalties to our cause, you must convince us that you believe in our ideals. We asked you to kill Spiegelman, and you failed. But you agreed to do it. Now, we're raising the stakes."

"Yeah, about that," Greg said, sounding irritated. "You told me to _kill_ Spiegelman. You _didn't_ tell me that he was part of your fucking group!"

Spiegelman laughed. "I would have been impressed if you had led me out to the street, Greg. But I have to say, shooting Grissom instead was a stroke of brilliance on our sniper's part."

"Wait a minute!" Greg cried. "If you're one of _them_, how come you didn't tell them where I was?"

"There were three people in the world who knew where you were, Greg. You, me, and your US Marshal bodyguard. Who we killed yesterday, by the way. It would be slightly suspicious if the Chi Tsaran found you too easily."

"This is fucking nuts…" Greg breathed, clutching his hair in his hands. "I never wanted to be a part of your stupid club anyway!"

"But we wanted _you_, Greg, and that makes all the difference," Spiegelman said with a smirk.

"Fuck that!" Greg exclaimed. He aimed his gun at Spiegelman. "I am through playing games. I am through taking orders. You will cut Nick down now, or so help me God I will shoot you both."

Greg heard a gun cock and whirled around to see Sykes, who had it aimed at Nick's temple.

"I think you forget, Greg, that _we_ have the upper hand," Spiegelman said flatly. Spiegelman reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone.

"What are you doing?" Greg demanded, panicked.

"You have a choice, Greg," Spiegelman said. "Either you can plant a bomb for us at the governor's house or you can take the rap for Nick's murder."

All of the color drained from Greg's face. "I don't..." His voice was suddenly very small, like that of a child's lost in the dark. He looked back at Nick, then at Spiegelman, then Nick again. "Nick..."

"You can't do it, Greg," Nick said bravely, though his cracking voice betrayed him. "He's got kids in that house."

Spiegelman shrugged and dialed on his cell phone, holding it to his ear. "Yes, this is Deputy Director Spiegelman. I followed some suspicious characters to a factory on Brooklyn. Greg Sanders is holding a gun to Nick Stokes' head and won't relent unless you do exactly as he says. I have reason believe that he is responsible for Gil Grissom's death as well—"

"Grissom's _dead_?!" Greg yelled, his voice echoing in the factory.

There were sirens in the distance. Spiegelman looked around, then turned back to his phone. "That was fast... What? Cutler?!" He looked suddenly enraged. "He didn't... I thought he was in the explosion? Never mind. They'll be here shortly, and I'm sure they can talk down their old coworker." He hung up, then looked at Sykes.

"Do it," he commanded.

"NO!" Greg yelled, and impulsively he aimed and at Sykes. There was the clatter of metal on the floor, and a loud bang that reverberated inside Nick's skull. Blood exploded into his mouth and he squeezed his eyes shut, the sordid metallic taste poisoning his taste buds. There were two more gunshots, but with his eyes closed, Nick couldn't see what was going on. There was the sound of running footsteps and a gust of wind past Nick's face.

"Greg?!" he screamed anxiously.

There was a hideous gurgling sound and Nick had to open his eyes as he heard running footsteps. He saw Greg, still wearing the Reagan mask, standing over Spiegelman's bloody body as the Deputy Director of the FBI spluttered for breath. Greg dropped his gun, but his eyes never left Spiegelman.

And behind him, Sara and Brass rounded the corner and gasped. They were followed by two cops, who rushed over to Greg and forced his arms behind his back, pulling off his mask—

"_No_!" Sara's low, desperate cry echoed in the factory.

Greg stared up at the ceiling as the cops cuffed his hands together, and then his eyes floated over to Nick, empty and wide.

Nick simply stared, his mouth open as they pushed Greg out of the factory.


	9. Cutler's Last Stand

_**Author's Note:**_ So... I am done with this. This is the end. Sorry for focusing so much on Cutler in the beginning. And sorry for the rushed, sappy ending. But I'm tired of apologizing, so I'm just going to leave it at that.

* * *

_"It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.__"_ -- Mark Twain

* * *

**Chapter Nine**

"Stop!" Cutler yelled, as he chased the stumbling, bleeding man running away from the building. He, too, was exhausted and limping, and his pain medication was wearing off so he began to feel the searing pain in his right leg. Lucky for him, he was left handed, and he kept his gun trained on the suspect. He had seen the suspect bolt out of the factory while he had waited for Brass and Sara in the car and knew he couldn't just sit there and watch him get away. So, in pain, he had stumbled out of the car to pursue the suspect.

In any other scenario, it would have been amusing, to watch two wounded men slowly running down the street. Finally, however, the suspect couldn't run any further and he fell to his knees, looking back at Cutler wearing a Bill Clinton mask.

Cutler caught up to him and glared down, breathing heavily as he lowered his gun, which had become to heavy to carry. Clinton fell to his knees and rolled onto his back as he looked up at Cutler with dark eyes behind his plastic mask. Cutler noticed that his right arm was in a tattered sling, and he was bleeding from his left shoulder.

"Didn't I shoot you before?" Cutler panted.

The man in the mask did not reply. Instead, before Cutler could even pull out his cuffs, he seized a small knife from the inside of his boot and stabbed upwards, into Cutler's stomach.

* * *

_June 4th, 1980_

Max Cutler had always been a man of principals. Ever since he was eight years old, when his father drilled into him the clear-cut difference between right and wrong. Before that day, he had been the most troublesome nuisance to his teachers and his friends. And then came the day when Roger Cutler had finally had enough.

His voice boomed inside the large suburban home. "_Maxwell!_"

He had been sneaking into the kitchen at the time, trying to steal the peanut butter in the fridge so he could use it as shampoo when he washed the dog, like his mother told him to do. But upon hearing his father, he had dropped the jar onto the floor. He froze, hoping his father wouldn't find him, but then he heard the deep voice again and it sent shivers down his spine.

"Maxwell Lazarus Cutler, get in here _right now_!"

Max knew it. His dad had finally found the bike.

Slowly, he dragged his feet across the kitchen floor and into the living room, and then moved slowly across the carpet, picking up static electricity as he begrudgingly made his way to the garage, where his father, the executioner, was waiting. He gripped the doorknob and slowly turned it before moving like molasses through the frame. He saw his father, standing behind the red and orange racing bike with his hands on his hip as he glared at his youngest son.

"What the hell is this?" his father rumbled, his voice like thunder in the echoing garage.

"It's a... it's a bike," Max mumbled, stating the obvious.

"_Whose_ bike, Max," his father said, gruffly. "I never bought this for you."

Max squirmed under his father's scrutiny. "I know..." he muttered nervously.

"Then whose bike _is_ it, Maxwell?"

Max began fiddling with his pockets. "Henry Yuckstein's..." he muttered.

"That's a cruel nickname, Max, now tell me what his real name is," his father ordered.

"Eckstein. Henry Eckstein."

"So this is the bike the Ecksteins reported stolen last week?" Max's lips remained tightly pursed. "_Answer me, son_!"

"Yeah, I guess..." he murmured.

"You _guess_?" His father would not relent until Max fully confessed.

"OK, it is," Max finally blurted out. "We took it from him when he was in the park playing with his bugs. But he's a _dork_, Dad! He doesn't deserve a bike this cool!"

Roger Cutler's lips were straight as he kneeled down in front of his son and gripped his shoulders tightly. "Max, everyone you meet is deserving of your respect. It doesn't matter who or what they are. Especially boys like Henry Eckstein, who could use a friend or two. Now, I know you aren't as straight-laced as your brother, and a few high jinks in one's lifetime is perfectly normal. But there is a line that you cannot cross, son. It's one thing to throw water balloons at girls from your treehouse, but it is a _crime_ to steal things. So you have two options, son. You can either go over to the Ecksteins yourself and return the bike personally and then ask Henry to come over and spend the night—"

"But Dad!"

"_Or_," his father continued sharply, "you can come with me down to the police station and stay in jail for a night."

Max's eyes doubled to the size of silver dollars. "I don't wanna go to jail!"

"Well you know that I'm good friends with Sheriff Hurley and I'm sure he would love to hear your side of the story. How you stole a bike from an unpopular kid—"

"OK, OK, I'll go over to the Ecksteins," Max mumbled. He moved over to the bike and gripped the handlebars, beginning to guide it out of the garage.

"And Max?" his father called, making Max stop and look at him. "If you _ever_ do something illegal again, I will take it up with Sheriff Hurley and you will go to jail for longer than just a night. Do you understand?"

Max, his lower lip jutting out in a pout, slowly nodded as he turned his bike and guided it out of the garage and down the street to the Ecksteins.

In a year's time, Max and Henry would be best friends. In four year's time, Henry would die of leukemia. On that day, Henry's parents would ring the doorbell to Max's house and present him with Henry's old bike, which was a little worn and rusty now, but still as bright a red as the day Max had stolen it.

Max Cutler still kept that bike in his garage, all the way up to the day of his death.

* * *

_February 14th, 2003_

"Happy Valentine's Day," Nora cooed, peeking around the corner of Max's office.

He looked up and smiled at her as she presented him with a small box and pushed it across his desk.

"What's this?" he asked playfully as he took the box in his hand.

"Your present," she explained needlessly.

He opened his desk and fumbled inside of it with one hand. "And now I feel bad, I didn't get you anything... Oh... Oh wait, what's this I feel?" He pulled out two tickets. "Cirque du Soleil? Well, how on earth did these get here?"

Nora giggled and slid into a chair opposite Max's desk. "Oh Max, that will be so much fun! "Oh Max, that will be so much fun! But I told you, you didn't have to get me anything _that_ extravagant! A pair of fake diamond earrings would have sufficed."

"Well, I know how much you love the dancing," he told her. "And I just couldn't resist. I love it when you're excited. That's when you get really touchy, and I know I'm going to score."

She rolled her eyes. "Open your present."

He did, expecting something basic like cufflinks, but his heart leapt into his throat and he lost all feeling in his fingers. A single brass key lay on the cotton inside of the box, her proposal clear. He immediately but the lid back on the box and shoved it back at her.

"Nora, I can't," he insisted, going pale.

"You can!" she returned. "Look, Max... I know it's a hard time for you, your father dying and everything, but to be fair I think it'll be good for you. I can't stand the thought of you alone in your apartment sulking all the time— and don't tell me that you don't sulk because I know you do."

He shook his head. "I'm not ready, Nora..." he said. "I think... maybe it's just too much."

Her face hardened and she reached out and took the box back. "Oh. I see. Well... I thought you'd be happy about it."

"I don't think we're at that stage in our relationship..."

"And when will we be?" Nora demanded. "We've been dating for three years, Max. I've been your partner for five." She rose to her feet, suddenly aggitated. "You know... Actually, I think Meyers wants me to work tonight. Something about a Columbian narcotics case..." She shoved her hands into her pockets. "How about you take Carrie to the cirque. You're sure to score with her, too," she added bitterly.

"Nora—"

"No," Nora said quickly. "No, Max... I'm done. I love you. And I can work with you. But I am tired of chasing you."

Max would always regret letting her walk out that door. Because though they had remained partners, and though they got along, he missed the taste of her lips, and the feel of her hands on his shoulders after a long day. And when he saw her lying there in Greg's apartment three years later, a part of him knew that it wasn't long before he followed her fate.

* * *

_October 27th, 2007_

Cutler dropped his gun and clutched at his stomach in shock, watching as the blood poured out onto his hands. The man who had stabbed him lay on his back and slowly removed his mask and Cutler saw the face of his killer for the very first time. It was the worn face of an older man whom Cutler had never seen before in his life, and yet it would be the very last face he would ever see. For some reason, he thought of Henry then, and how the twelve-year-old had shown no fear in the face of his impending death. He thought of Nora, who had died suddenly, with no time to show fear or distress. And then, he fell to his knees, unable to stand, his body haven taken too much damage to sustain him for any longer.

Still, Max Cutler was an FBI agent. And Max Cutler always hit his target.

With his last ounce of strength he latched onto his killer's hands and dug into his back pocket, pulling out his cuffs and latching them onto the man's wrist, as well as his own. That way, if the old man tried to run, he would be hindered by Cutler's dead weight.

He spluttered, blood gurgling up in his throat as he laid on the asphalt on his stomach, struggling to breathe. He closed his eyes, feeling it was time to sleep, and he was ready for bed. He blinked and saw his killer staring down at him with a cold expression, trying to yank his wrist out of the cuffs, but he had been shot, and Cutler had cuffed his wounded arm. The last thing Max Cutler saw was the surrender in his killer's eyes, knowing that there was no where left to run.

Max did not hear his name being called by a man who had seen him fall, nor did he hear the footsteps pounding against the pavement, because somewhere between the memories of Henry's bike and Nora's face, he had died.

* * *

"Dear God..." Sara breathed as she took in Nick's appearance.

"Don't talk, just get me the hell down from here!" Nick demanded. He looked at Brass. "There was a second guy. The blood on me isn't mine, it's his. I think Greg shot him."

Brass nodded as he looked at the blood trail leading out of the warehouse. "I'm on it." The detective turned to Sara. "You get him down. Fill him in," he said, and with that he darted out and after the suspect.

He hadn't run very far until he saw Max Cutler fall to his knees and reach for the suspect's struggling arm before cuffing him. Brass let out a scream, furious at Cutler for leaving the car when he had told the Agent to stay put. _Although_, Brass reasoned, _I should have known better than to try and tell an FBI Agent what to do._

He picked up speed and saw the suspect patting down Cutler's body, searching for a key to unlock the cuffs so he could get away, but Brass put a stop to that. "Don't even try it," he warned, aiming his gun at the man.

The suspect raised the arm unattached to Cutler in an act of surrender.

"Drop the knife," Brass ordered, seeing the blood on it glint in the rising sun.

The suspect did as he was told and Brass kneeled down next to Cutler's body, feeling his neck for a pulse. But the detective found nothing.

He turned the agent over onto his shoulder and saw Cutler's glassy brown eyes staring at something Brass would never see. He reached out and reverently closed them with his hand. He bowed his head, taking a moment to respect the man whose last act had been to restrain a criminal.

He raised his head and opened his eyes, pulling out his own pair of cuffs and eying the criminal with raised eyebrows. "OK, buddy. You're coming with me."

* * *

Nick stumbled forward as the wires suspending him gave way and Sara caught him to make sure he didn't fall.

"Nick, what happened?" she asked as she helped him steady himself. "Did Greg really—"

"No," Nick panted, catching his breath. "Greg is a good guy, Sara. You should know that."

She felt almost as if he was accusing her. "I do," she insisted. "But when I saw him there in that mask, I..."

"Spiegelman tried to frame him for my murder," Nick explained. "Mine and... Grissom's."

Sara frowned. "Grissom isn't dead," she said.

Nick blinked. "He's not? But Spiegelman—"

"Is the bad guy," Sara finished for him with a smirk. "You should know that."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "You gotta tell them to let Greg go. Spiegelman was rotten to the core, and Greg has no part of this."

"We'll sort it out," she told him. "I promise."

Nick used her shoulders to stable himself and then looked at her and sighed. "It's been a long, long day," he said.

She laughed. "The EMTs are outside waiting to check up on you."

"I'm fine," he said. "Just a little sore from being strung up there for so long."

"Either way," Sara insisted. "Humor me, would you?"

"Grissom's really not dead?" Nick sounded hopeful.

"He's recovering," Sara told him. "The medics got to him in time. But just a minute longer and... well, who knows." She paused. "But... well, Nick..."

"What is it?" Nick asked.

"A _lot_ of people got hurt in that lab explosion," Sara explained. "Warrick and Catherine have some bad burns..."

"Will they be OK?" Nick's smile vanished.

"I think so," Sara said slowly. "Brass said they weren't near the worst of it."

"What are we gonna do now?" Nick asked as they walked out into the sunrise.

Sara took a deep breath. "We'll just... take one step at a time, alright?"

* * *

The white florescent lights buzzed above Greg's head as he stared up at the agent interrogating him with apathy.

"I told you everything I know," Greg repeated. "Spiegelman was dirty. How the hell else do you explain how Devon Anders ended up dead? Last I heard, Spiegelman was the only one other than me who knew he was the mole."

"Which only further implicates _you_, Mr. Sanders," the agent reminded him.

"I had to kill Spiegelman," Greg explained. "It was the only way to keep him from murdering Nick and dozens of other planned targets. The governor's place, for one."

"Well now that he is dead, you have no proof to support your claim."

"Let me put it this way," Greg said slowly, irritably. "Spiegelman knew Devon Anders was the mole. Spiegelman knew when Kincaid was suddenly murdered. Spiegelman wasn't available when I was attacked in my apartment two months ago. Spiegelman was the one who called in my betrayal _right_ before I shot him. Would he have been so calm with a _gun_ to his head? More than that, if I _was_ a traitor, would I have even _allowed_ him to make that call?"

"Spiegelman said you were threatening to kill Stokes," the agent said. "It wouldn't have been difficult to switch targets last second."

"OK," Greg said. "Then how about you _ask_ Nick Stokes exactly what went down? He's alive right now _because_ I shot Spiegelman."

"These are mighty accusations you're making, little man," the agent said condescendingly. "Spiegelman was a powerful man."

"Which is exactly why he was able to pull it off!" Greg exclaimed. "He has been covering his own tracks all this _time_!"

"Spiegelman _hated_ the Chi Tsaran," the agent hissed. "His own _daughter_ was slaughtered by them—"

"Yeah, because he _killed_ her!" Greg yelled.

"How _dare _you!" the agent growled. "Julie Spiegelman was only twelve years old when she was flayed alive. It _devastated _Don, after his wife had died three years earlier!"

"Did you ever catch the member who did it?" Greg inquired.

"Yes, actually, Don—" He faltered. "Don managed to obtain a confession from the man that did it."

"You see what I mean? He's cleaning up after himself!" Greg cried. "Exactly how many members of the Chi Tsaran have confessed in the history of their existence?"

"Just two," the agent sighed. "Gerald Kemp and Andrew Kincaid."

"And the only reason Kincaid confessed was because I had _cornered_ him with forensics," Greg reminded him. "Why did Kemp confess?"

The agent's phone buzzed on his hip. "Walter... Yeah, he's right here... What? You're kidding!... OK... OK, fine, thank you." He hung up and glared at Greg with malice. "You're free to go. It seems your friend Nick did vouch for you after all."

"Thank you!" Greg exclaimed, throwing his arms up. He rose to his feet and cast the agent a warning look. "Just because you've gotten Spiegelman and Sykes doesn't mean this is over. The Chi Tsaran has cells all over the nation."

"You let the FBI deal with that, Mr. Sanders," said the agent. "As of your death back in September, you are officially off this case."

Greg nodded. He never thought he would have been so glad to hear those words. "Good luck with breaking them," he said sincerely, and then he was gone.

* * *

_Two Months Later..._

Greg turned up his stereo and the choral music of _Gloria! In Excelsis Deo_ drifted into the corners of his apartment. It had been a long time since he had gotten involved with the FBI and he hoped he would never have to again. Although, at times, he still had nightmares of men wearing plastic masks slowly stripping off his skin. Sometimes, the men would pull off the masks and Greg would be staring at himself.

But it was Christmas, and at this time of year Greg refused to think of such hideous thoughts. _Leave that for Halloween, where it belongs_, Greg thought to himself. He turned around and looked at his naked tree and then at the boxes that were scattered on his couch and coffee table. He looked at his watch. He checked on the cider. He chilled the champagne. He looked at his watch again. He waited.

By the time his stereo had made it four songs into the CD, someone finally knocked on his door and he grinned, making him spin around on his heal with a grin on his face as he opened it to see Nick and Sara. The former was smiling, while the latter looked a little haggard.

"Merry Christmas," Nick chimed.

Greg laughed. "Glad you guys could make it."

"So are we," said Sara. "The way our case was going, for a minute there..."

"She was ready to go home," Nick said. "I practically had to drag her here. 'Rick and Cath here yet?"

Greg shook his head no. "Grissom said he'd be a little late, though."

"We know," said Sara. "He's still on that case."

"What was so hard about it?" Greg asked.

"A little girl," Sara explained. "So close to Christmas. You understand."

Just as they were talking, Catherine and Warrick appeared behind them. "We come bearing gifts," Catherine declared, holding out a tray of sugar cookies.

"If you get food poisoning, blame Cath," Warrick put in with a smile.

"Come on in, guys," said Greg. "Catherine, Warrick, you both look great."

They nodded. "Thank God we weren't that close to the center of the blast," Warrick said. "Otherwise, who knows what could have happened."

"What _did_ happen," Sara reminded them grimly, "to Henry and Mandy."

A strange quiet settled over the five of them and Greg bowed his head. "I still feel responsible for that," he whispered.

"Sources say it was Spiegelman who smuggled in the bomb," said Sara. "There was nothing you could have done, Greg."

"Is it wrong that a part of me regrets not leading him out to be shot?" Greg asked. "Not that he would have been... being part of their team and all."

Sara smiled and squeezed his shoulder. "You did the best you could with what you had. I don't know what I would have done in your position."

He returned the smile. "Does that mean you've forgiven me for lying to you?"

Her smile faded into a playful frown. "Don't hold your breath," she said, then caught sight of the pine tree in the corner and gasped. "Is this it?" she asked, walking towards it.

Greg turned. "Do you see any _other_ naked trees in this place?"

She rolled her eyes. "Thanks for inviting us to trim your tree for you," she said. "You know tree trimming parties are probably the smartest way to get out of the work. Fortunately for us, _you'll_ be the one taking it all down again."

"Hey, I could invent a tree un-trimming party."

"She's right, Sanders," said Catherine striding forward and opening one of his boxes. "You'll be on your own for the cleanup."

Greg laughed as there was another knock at the door and he went to open it, finding Brass and Grissom standing there.

"Happy Hanukah!" Brass declared.

"I didn't know you were Jewish," said Greg.

Brass shrugged as he walked in. "I'm not Christian either. But I am an equal opportunity celebrator. Ooh, cookies!"

Greg laughed as he watched the detective move towards Catherine's cookies. He turned back to Grissom, whose face looked a little warm and his smile faded.

"How are you doing?" he asked, almost guiltily.

But Grissom forced a smile. "I'm OK, Greg," he assured the younger man. "I'm just tired."

"Griss..." He felt as if something awkward had grown between them since he had miraculously returned to life. He didn't know what to say, except for the all-encompassing, "I'm sorry."

But the older man placed a fatherly hand on Greg's shoulder. "You did well, Greg. You were in an awkward position and you did what you thought would be best for all of us. And it was a hard decision. I don't blame you. For _anything_."

These words warmed him better than anything, beyond the festive atmosphere, beyond the sound of Sara's laughter, or Nick's jovial demeanor, or Catherine's cookies, or Warrick's bright eyes, or Brass's jokes.

All was forgiven.

All was well.

And a new year was just on the horizon.

* * *

_**End Note:**_ When I said I was tired of apologizing, I lied. Sorry for killing Henry and Mandy, but I felt that in a huge explosion like that someone needed to die. I kinda wrote myself into a corner with that plot twist. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I promise, _Learn to Be Still's_ ending will be MUCH better.


End file.
